act 1

Stiles was tired.

He was… he was so fucking tired.

His ribs ached as he trudged up the stairs, each step feeling heavier than the last. His ankle was definitely sprained, and he used the wall to steady himself as he walked to his room. Leaning against the door frame, Stiles tried to catch his breath around the cramp in his side, his eyes squeezed shut in a desperate attempt to stave off the burn of pain.

Which was apparently a huge mistake, because he nearly had a heart attack when Jackson Whittemore said, “You look like shit.”

Startled, Stiles clenched his jaw to keep himself from crying out when he jerked backwards in surprise. It took him a second before he was able to open his eyes, and his heart only started racing faster when he realized it wasn’t only Jackson who’d broken into his bedroom.

What.

The.

Fuck.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, directing the question to Isaac since he’d always been the least dickish of them.

His voice was still hoarse from screaming.

Sure, the bite had seemed to unlock some sort of hidden asshole attitude—or maybe it was the death of Lahey Senior and the end of the abuse Stiles had spent years begging Isaac to report—but he was still better than Jackson.

It seemed he’d chosen wrong, though, because Isaac said nothing.

Isaac dropped his eyes to his knees. He was sitting cross-legged on Stiles’ bed, and the disparity of something that was once so familiar made his heart ache over the pain pulsing through his entire fucking body.

He was too tired to deal with that, so he looked up at Jackson. The other boy was wearing a familiar sneer, but it felt flat.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Jackson snapped.

Stiles saw the way Isaac flinched in his peripheral vision, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Tone down the asshole, asshole,” Stiles said. He was too tired to put any real heat into it, but he still added, “You’re the ones in my room.”

“Papa S let us in,” Isaac whispered, almost so quietly that Stiles could have convinced himself that he’d heard him wrong. 

“Don’t,” Stiles snarled, not even caring when Isaac flinched away again. “You don’t get to come in here, after everything you’ve done and said, you don’t get to—you don’t—”

Stiles’ voice broke when his knees gave out.

Tears blurred his vision, but even through the sheen of moisture, he could see Jackson race across the room to catch him.

Stupid supernatural speed. Stupid, stupid fucking werewolves.

But Stiles… well, Stiles was too tired to fight it.

He was too tired to fight anything.

Werewolf pain drain was amazing. Ah-Maze-Ing. Like, the very best thing to ever exist!

“This is the good good shit,” Stiles slurred. Slightly. He only slightly slurred.

He felt good. He felt good, and he was only partially aware of the fact that it was Jackson Whittemore that was making him feel good. Heh. Making him feel good. Jackson! Stiles sniggered as the thought crossed his mind before he side-eyed his own psyche for being absolutely ridiculous.

Damn. The pain drain was hitting.

“What the hell did that geriatric fucker do to you?” Jackson snarled dangerously.

Stiles hadn’t heard the other boy sound so angry in years, not since the very first time Isaac had shown up to school with a bruise on his wrist that he refused to talk about.

Or, maybe, that day under the bleachers.

But that hadn’t been anger, had it?

The memory was sobering. It pulled his attention back to the present, and he forced himself to stop floating in the bliss of pain relief and ground himself in the present. There was too much going on for him to get lost in the high.

Taking a deep breath, he shifted to get more comfortable and ignored the fact that Jackson was still supporting his weight. Having his knees literally give out on him wasn’t the most embarrassing thing he’d ever done—especially not in front of these two—but the reminder of literally collapsing into Jackson’s arms still made his cheeks feel warm and blotchy.

He tried to pull away from where the other boy was awkwardly crouched down and supporting his weight, but his ribs tweaked and a whine slipped out of his throat.

That got Isaac moving, apparently.

“Stop trying to move, Sti,” Isaac whispered. Apparently, he was breaking out all the nicknames, and Stiles tried to pat him away before the wolf caught his wrist and doubled the magical pain-draining.

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles hissed as he was flooded with relief. “God, I can’t believe Scott never told me about this.”

“He probably doesn’t know how,” Isaac said quietly. Stiles saw the contemplative look on his face as the other boy turned to Jackson before he hesitantly asked, “How… how did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Jackson snapped, but his faux anger fell flat. “I just didn’t want this idiot to break his face when he hit the ground and then this shit started happening.”

“Glad to see you still care,” Stiles snapped in return.

His voice was raw.

He hated it.

And Jackson, who had always been able to keep up with him, said, “I never stopped, dickwad.”

Which was…

Stiles didn’t know what it was.

And when Isaac sighed, achingly familiar, and said, “Quit it, you two,” Stiles didn’t know what that was, either.

“Ngh,” Stiles groaned as he rolled over. His face hit something firmer and much warmer than his pillow, and he made another questioning noise even as his body moved into the warmth.

Something shifted behind him, and Stiles had about half a second of blind panic before the body cuddling him pressed closer and a hand slipped under his t-shirt to splay across his belly.

The familiar slugging drug of werewolf paindrain magic hit him and he moaned.

Loudly.

“Oh my God,” Isaac whispered. He sounded choked like he had that time Stiles accidentally lobbed a football at his throat. Stiles groaned again when another wave of pain siphoned off, and Isaac hissed, “Jackson what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“It sure as hell doesn’t sound like that!” Isaac whisper-shouted.

Since Stiles was apparently sleeping on his chest, it was really loud. He patted the other boy’s chest—Isaac wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Stiles’ sleep-addled brain spent a few seconds groping a nicely defined pectoral muscle—as he shushed him.

“Sleepy time,” Stiles murmured, his lips catching on Isaac’s skin.

The wolf whined.

Jackson huffed against Stiles’ neck, and asked, “Who’s doing nothing now, huh?” but it didn’t really make any sense to Stiles.

Instead of dealing with their silliness, Stiles let the draw of sleep pull him back under.

Jackson and Issac were back; he knew everything would be okay.

When Stiles finally pulled himself out of the deep clutches of sleep, he was alone. His other pillow was still sleep-warmed when Stiles rolled into the spot, which made his weird, pain-related dream not a dream but instead a very, very embarrassing reality that he was hoping to hide from for the rest of his life.

Only, his alarm chose that exact moment to blare to life.

Then, his dad called up the stairs that he had coffee going.

Ugh. That meant he actually had to get up and face the day (and, even worse, the Sheriff).

Pushing himself out of bed, Stiles went through his morning routine much slower than normal. He was pretty sure he had a broken toe and waking up after an entire night of werewolf pain drain did not feel great. He was pretty sure it didn’t have any actual healing properties, which meant that he’d have to stop by the clinic—for rumoured bruise cream Deaton had vaguely mentioned during the whole Kanima fiasco—and the hospital—for the good stuff from Melissa—on his way home from school.

Which all sounded absolutely awful and entirely no fun at all.

By the time he got downstairs, he was sore, cranky and still insanely tired.

“Coffee’s in the pot,” his dad called from the kitchen. Stiles took a deep breath at the bottom of the stairs before he forced himself to move. He was really hoping his dad would just let bygones be bygones, but he had no such luck. “You look rough, kid.”

Biting back a very sarcastic reply, Stiles gave his dad a tense nod before getting himself coffee. He knew that it was a peace offering after the night before, that the coffee was his dad’s way of saying it was okay that they’d argued and that he wasn’t mad Stiles had refused to go to the hospital to get checked out.

He still stood by that. There was nothing that his dad would have been able to and he knew what broken bones felt like. He was… maybe not fine, but well enough to know that all the medical intervention he needed was some good painkillers and rest.

But even knowing nothing was broken and that there was nothing he could report, Stiles knew that he needed to do something. Lying to his dad was getting worse and worse as an uncrossable chasm of lies built up between them.

He was scared that eventually it would split open and swallow them both whole.

Ignoring the ache in his chest, he slathered some almond butter onto a piece of whole-grain bread and plopped down at the table.

“Morning, Daddio,” Stiles greeted before he took a big bite of his breakfast to discourage his dad from replying.

It didn’t help.

Dad raised an eyebrow that made it clear he knew exactly what Stiles was doing and gave him a very unimpressed expression.

Ugh. Well, at least he tried!

“Was that Jackson and Isaac who I saw creeping out of our house before dawn?” Dad asked, and Stiles violently choked on his coffee.

“You—did that—on—purpose,” Stiles wheezed as he struggled for breath.

His dad smirked. The bastard.

“So wanna tell me why two boys I haven’t seen in five years were climbing out of your bedroom window like delinquents half an hour before your alarm went off?”

Stiles blinked. He blinked again. Had they really stayed all night?

Then, because his dad was still watching him, he said, “No?”

Which was not the right thing to say.

Dad’s easy-going expression slid into something hard and determined, and with a bite to his voice, said, “Dammit Stiles, that’s not enough anymore! I’ve put this off long enough, but we both know that you’ve been lying to me for months and that has to stop.”

“Dad, I—”

“And don’t even try to lie your way out of it. I’m sick and tired of parsing through your words to find some hidden truth!”

“It’s not like you’d believe me, anyway,” Stiles spat hotly, wanting to push himself back from the table and storm away.

He knew it wouldn’t do any good, though, so he gritted his teeth and avoided his dad’s eyes.

“What was that?” Dad asked snidely. Something about his tone set Stiles off and he clenched his hands into fists tightly.

It didn’t help.

“You wouldn’t believe me!” Stiles shouted. “You never believe me when I need you to; why the hell would this be any different?”

“If this is about your mother—”

“No! Not—I tried telling you I was gay and you told me I wasn’t dressed properly!” Stiles cried.

Dad was around the table and dropping to his knees before Stiles could even process that he’d just come out at the kitchen table.

“Kiddo, I am so sorry it seemed that way,” Dad told him seriously, crouched down in front of him. “I… fuck, kid, I thought you were just trying to talk your way out of trouble again. I shouldn't have dismissed you like that, and I sure as hell didn’t mean it the way that it sounded.”

“How did you mean it?” Stiles whispered, feeling dumb and emotional when his voice cracked.

“You were at a gay club wearing a t-shirt and a baggy hoodie. Excuse me for thinking you weren’t there partying it up with the other clubgoers,” his dad explained. “Still, I shouldn’t have said it that way. I’m sorry, kiddo. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Stiles mumbled as he let himself be pulled forward into a comforting hug. It was a little awkward given the angle, but Stiles wouldn’t ever turn down a Stilinski-style bear hug from his dad.

After all, he had it on good authority that they were the best hugs in the world.

The long-forgotten memory made him wince, and he mumbled into his father’s shoulder as he explained, “There’s… there’s nothing going on with Jackson and Isaac. I don’t even know why they were here last night.”

“They said that they were here to check on you. I’m not too sure when they would have seen you unless you lied about going out on a date with Lydia just to get out of the house. Wanna clear up that timeline for me?” Dad asked him as he leaned back.

Stiles helped him up, more than happy to move on from the serious conversation.

But then he realized his dad wasn’t just asking. He was interrogating.

And Stiles was too tired to keep lying.

“I… I can’t tell you yet,” Stiles whispered. Dad’s face went dark, but Stiles was quick to add, “I’m going to tell you. Dad, I promise I’m going to tell you what’s been going on, but I. I can’t do it yet, okay?”

“You have a week of school left,” Dad said hesitantly, with enough naked hope in his expression that Stiles couldn’t imagine doing anything but agreeing.

“After I’m done, I promise I’ll tell you everything,” Stiles swore, and his dad?

His dad pulled him up into another hug.

Stiles didn’t let go until he had to leave for school.

Stiles was accosted the second he stepped out of the jeep.

“You smell sad. What the hell happened?”

“Is… is P-Papa S okay?”

“Were you two waiting for me?” Stiles demanded as he slammed the jeep’s door closed.

He whirled around to find Jackson and Isaac standing barely a foot in front of him. Jackson looked annoyed—which was pretty much his default—but Isaac looked honestly worried. The concern painted across the other boy’s face melted some of his ire, and he rubbed a hand down his own face to give himself a second to compose himself.

“Yeah, Issy, my dad’s fine,” Stiles murmured. He hadn’t even realized he’d used Isaac’s childhood nickname until the other boy started blushing, but it was already out there. “He saw you two, by the way. What were you fail-wolves doing sneaking out when he was awake?”

Jackson muttered something under his breath that Stiles didn’t hear. It only took a raised eyebrow before Jackson was scowling at the floor and saying, “We fell asleep. His shower woke us up.”

“Oh my god, you have got to be kidding me,” Stiles grumbled, annoyed and not even attempting to hide it.

He turned on his heel and started marching towards school. He winced when he tried to swing his bag onto his shoulder and before he could even readjust it, Jackson was taking the bag from him and shouldering it on the opposite arm that his own was hanging from.

His fingers brushed down Stiles’ arm, but the touch was there and gone again.

If it wasn’t for Isaac’s fingers on the small of his back, he totally would have stopped and stared.

As it was, he started asking, “What are you—” before Isaac’s fingers slipped under his flannel and pressed against his skin.

“Fuck,” he hissed, his step faltering as Isaac pulled away the rest of the pain that his two double-strength Advils hadn’t been able to fully mask. “God, I hate how good that feels.”

“Stop fighting it, Sti,” Isaac murmured at him. His eyes were bright, like they’d been years ago when they spent hours laughing and teasing each other. “Just admit that you can’t live without us and carry on.”

Rolling his eyes, Stiles grumbled about not needing a protection detail and completely ignored how much Isaac’s words hurt.

Still, he didn’t leave them behind when they entered the school. He waited quietly beside Jackson when they stopped at Isaac’s locker, and he ignored the way the entire school was staring at them when they stopped at Jackson’s.

By the time they made a pit stop at his own locker before the two boys walked him to his first-period class, Stiles almost didn’t mind the quiet company.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Stiles hissed as Scott grabbed his wrist tightly enough to sting. He tried jerking his arm back, but Scott refused to let go and started dragging him down the hall. Fuck, that was going to hurt for hours.

“Scott, seriously, let me go.”

Scott didn’t let him go. Instead, his so-called “best friend” forcefully pulled him into an empty classroom before whirling on him with a glare.

“What the heck is going on, Stiles?” Scott demanded hotly.

Stiles rubbed his wrist lightly as he waited for Scott to continue. After about seven seconds it became apparent that the other boy had nothing else to say, and Stiles did a slow blink in surprise.

“What are you talking about? You’re the one who dragged me in here,” Stiles pointed out.

He wasn’t even sure how Scott had nabbed him, actually. It seemed as though Jackson and Isaac were trading off on babysitting duty, because one of them had accompanied him to and from each one of his morning classes. He had almost waited for them before lunch when they hadn’t immediately shown up, but then he realized he was being ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

He did not need baby werewolves following him around. Not at all! It didn’t matter what type of history they had or how awkward the conversations were between them after years of complete silence and mutual ignoring.

It was ridiculous and Stiles had decided that waiting would make him ridiculous, so he’d left class and started for his locker to grab his lunch.

Only Scott had nabbed him before he’d even been able to drop off his books.

And now, he was seemingly accusing him of… something?

“Seriously, Scott, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stiles said when Scott did nothing but cross his arms and glare at him some more.

“You tell me, Stiles! I have no idea what’s going on with you. First, you disappeared when I needed you, and now you’re hanging out with Isaac and Jackson?” Scott spat the name with so much ire that Stiles physically leaned away as surprise swept through him.

He’d never heard Scott sound so hateful, not even a few months ago when he’d been dead set on killing the Alpha in a desperate—and useless—bid to get his humanity back.

“I didn’t just disappear,” Stiles said, and then clamped his mouth shut when startling clarity struck.

Right. Right, Scott didn’t know about what happened. He hadn’t even asked. Which… well, that fucking sucked, actually, because Jackson and Isaac noticed and neither of them had called themselves his best friends in nearly five years.

Why the hell hadn’t Scott known something was wrong?

Why the hell didn’t Scott notice now, since Stiles actively had a black eye and a split fucking lip?

Which, speaking of, Stiles asked, “And what the hell did you need me for? You seemed just fine on your own, working with the enemy and abusing Derek.”

“I didn’t abuse Derek!” Scott cried indignantly, puffing out his chest ridiculously.

“Then what the hell do you call forcing him to bite Gerard?” Stiles demanded.

But Scott didn’t back down. He set his jaw stubbornly and said, “He deserved it with everything he did to us.”

“Okay, I’m seriously going to pretend that you didn’t just claim an actual rape victim deserved to have their bodily autonomy ripped away from them again as they were forced to pervert something that we both know they considered to be a gift,” Stiles said slowly. He gave Scott a chance to say something, but when nothing was forthcoming, he huffed and said, “Alright then. Well ignoring all of that, what the hell was I supposed to help you with?”

“I-I… I don’t know! You were just supposed to be there!”

“Very astute, Scott,” he said drily, which only pissed Scott off even more.

“You can’t distract me by bringing up Derek, Stiles! I’m not just going to forget that you’re acting all buddy-buddy with the enemy!”

“Seriously? Jackson and Isaac are not the enemy,” Stiles said as he rolled his eyes.

“Jackson is!” Scott shouted as his eyes tinged yellow.

“Sure, when he was a mindless murder lizard, yeah,” Stiles allowed as he took a half step backwards. “But you were there last night. Ya know, when he became a real boy using the power of true love or whatever.”

“You don’t even like them!” Scott argued. “You were the one who complained about them all the time, remember?”

The conversation switch was so sudden that even Stiles had trouble keeping up with where Scott was going, so it took him a second to parse out how he wanted to respond.

“I wasn’t complaining about them, Scott. I was venting my frustrations,” Stiles explained. He knew it didn’t matter from the all too familiar and all too stubborn look in his friend’s eye.

“Oh, like you didn’t spend years whining about how they don’t like you anymore? As if that wasn’t enough, you still whine about it every year! Do you have any idea how annoying it’s always been to listen to and now you’re just acting like you’re best friends?”

That was… a gross misrepresentation of Stiles’ yearly panic attacks when the anniversary of The Fight came around. There were two days a year when Stiles was allowed to stay in bed, no questions asked, and the anniversary of The Fight ranked up there with the anniversary of his mom’s death.

Scott knew that. Scott knew all of that, and he was… he was just…

“No,” Stiles said firmly. “No, you don’t get to talk to me like that, Scott.”

Scott looked taken aback that Stiles would dare to set up a boundary, but… that was really just their friendship, wasn’t it? Stiles realized with startling clarity that there had always been an imbalance there, and Stiles also realized, suddenly, there always would be.

He knew that Scott was self-centred and selfish. He usually didn’t mind, ‘cause it didn’t have that much of an effect on him. But this? Scott knew how much losing Jackson and Isaac had hurt him. Hell, it was the only reason the two of them had even gotten so close, and Scott sure as hell hadn’t been complaining five years ago when he finally had someone else to hang out with.

Taking a deep breath, Stiles ran through a whole list of different things to say before deciding it wasn’t worth it. Scott wasn’t going to listen to what he had to say, and honestly? He wasn’t really sure he cared.

He sure as hell didn’t care enough to stay.

Taking a deep breath, Stiles asked, “I haven’t seen Allison around. Where do you think she is today?”

And then he walked away.

It felt final.

“What are you two doing here again?”

Stiles knew he sounded tired, but he didn’t have the energy to fake it. It had been a long ass day at school, with his classes dragging on after his confrontation with Scott. Jackson and Isaac had met him outside of the bathroom and walked him to his class after lunch, and then each class after that. Then they walked him to his car before disappearing together.

It was.

Stiles didn’t know what it was.

He also didn’t know why he felt such a sharp ache at being excluded from whatever they’d obviously worked out.

But he was tired, his body was sore, and he’d just sat through an entirely too quiet dinner because his dad had to work late.

He wanted to shower and get into bed and sleep for a week.

Only Jackson and Isaac were in his room.

Again.

“I’m too tired to deal with this shit right now. What the hell are you two doing here?” he snapped.

Jackson snarled at him, but Isaac looked chagrined. Stiles watched as he wrapped a hand around Jackson’s wrist and squeezed, and something long forgotten crumbled apart in his chest.

“Please,” he begged, his voice breaking and his eyes burning as his chest fucking ached. “I can’t do this tonight.”

Before he could say anything else, Isaac was right in front of him and pulling him into his arms. The other boy was a little taller than him, but the way he curled into the embrace let Stiles tuck him into his arms and rest his chin on his head—just like when they’d been kids and Isaac was the shortest one.

It didn’t help.

It made everything worse.

“I’m sorry,” Isaac whispered into his neck. “We… we don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t need you to do anything,” he said, but it didn’t hold any real heat. “It’s been years.”

Jackson whined high in his throat, and the sound was so canine that Stiles didn’t stop himself from reaching out.

Soon enough, Jackson was there. He fit himself into their embrace just like he used to, wrapping himself around Stiles and Isaac and brushing his temple against Stiles’ cheek. That was familiar, too, and Stiles was still an inch or so taller than Jackson. There was something about that, about the way it wasn’t just familiar but still the same that Stiles’ next breath came a little easier.

“Not that this isn’t nice,” Stiles admitted, his heart racing in his ears, “but what are you two doing here again?”

The silence was loud. Stiles wasn’t sure if they were constantly remembering the same things as he was, but it was an emotional roller coaster he did not sign up for and wanted to get off as desperately as he wanted to stay on for the rest of his life.

“I don’t… I don’t know where to go,” Isaac whispered. His breath was warm as it tickled his neck. “I was staying with Derek, but… Erica and Boyd ran away and he’s been…”

“A fucking asshole,” Jackson spat. “After I got dressed at Lydia’s I went to see what the hell was going on, and he was being a fucking prick to Isaac. I wasn’t just gonna leave him there.”

“Then…”

“Yeah, then we came to check on you. It took you forever to get home.”

Stiles pulled back and shot Jackson a glare. “Yeah, you dick, I had to dig my jeep out of a freaking cement wall!”

“Is Roscoe okay?” Isaac asked seriously, which, ridiculously, made Stiles’ ire melt.

Huffing, he said, “Thank god, yeah. I mean, I definitely need to get her looked at, but she’s running for now.”

“I’ll take her in after school tomorrow,” Jackson said nonchalantly as he stepped out of their embrace and threw himself across Stiles’ bed like some sort of ridiculous, sexy model.

The other boy smirked, so Stiles flipped him off even as he retreated to his desk chair.

“No,” Stiles said, but he knew it would be useless. “You’re not taking Roscoe anywhere.”

Jackson snorted, but he didn’t say anything else. It didn’t escape his notice that Jackson hadn’t explained what he was doing in Stiles’ room, but that wasn’t exactly surprising, either. It had always been harder to get Jackson to open up—Stiles could still remember what a freaking nightmare the other boy had been when he first found out about his adoption and how long it had taken for him to open up to them about what he was feeling.

Isaac though… yeah, that made sense. Stiles actually had known that Derek had taken the other boy in following the death of his dad, and it… he hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t liked it, but there hadn’t been anything that he or his dad could really do about it.

At least now, Isaac was here. Sure, everything was shitty and terrible and Stiles still felt like he was seconds away from breaking down, but at least Isaac was safe.

Which, speaking of…

Taking a deep breath, Stiles stared down at his hands as he worked himself up to admit something that made his mouth taste like copper.

“They… they didn’t just run away,” Stiles said quietly. “N-Not at first.”

Jackson growled and asked, “Gerard?”

Stiles nodded slowly. Thankfully neither of them asked anything else because Stiles felt like he’d been flayed alive and he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle talking about the basement.

Jackson huffed loudly and Stiles looked up to find him already rolling his eyes. He said, “It wasn’t the power of true love,” like that was supposed to mean anything.

It didn’t, so Stiles asked, “What?”

“We heard you talking with Scott,” Isaac admitted weakly.

“Yeah, what a fucking asshole. And he says I’m bad? Jesus Christ, what a goddamn hypocrite!” Jackson cried.

Which was so not productive and seriously annoying, so Stiles snapped, “Get to the point!”

In response, Jackson glared at him. But, a moment later, he slowly started to explain.

“It wasn’t the power of true love or whatever you’re thinking. Lydia, she… I gave her a key to my place when we started dating so she could come and go. Her and my parents got along and sometimes she’d go over when I was out with Danny.” Jackson growled under his breath and his eyes flashed in a show of emotion Stiles hadn’t been expecting. “It wasn’t the power of true love.”

“Okay,” Stiles whispered as he met Isaac’s eyes.

The taller boy’s expression was just as shocked as his own. It was obvious to Stiles—and to Isaac, apparently—that there was more to what Jackson was saying. They’d both learned to read between the lines a long time ago when it came to what Jackson was and wasn’t willing to say, but he didn’t know if this Jackson was the same as the one he’d loved so dearly.

He didn’t know this Jackson at all.

And that, more than anything, made him feel exhausted.

“I’m going to shower,” Stiles said as he stood up. “You two can take a turn after or use Dad’s if you want, but I’m going to shower and then I’m going to bed.”

Isaac was still standing in the middle of his room, looking small and lost.

“Issy,” he said softly, ignoring the way his voice broke at the too-familiar nickname. Isaac’s eyes were wide and shining when he looked up. “Pajamas are still in the top drawer. I don’t think I have any pants that’ll fit your giraffe legs, but you can borrow any of the shirts you find. Boxers are to the right, and they should fit too.”

Isaac nodded and crossed to Stiles’ dresser, but not before Stiles saw the way his cheeks went blotchy pink in a telltale sign that he was going to start crying. It was one they both shared, and Stiles could only imagine what his own face looked like.

“What about me?” Jackson asked, affronted.

Stiles shrugged and said, “Stop being such a dick?” before he left the room.

Whatever. Jackson would stay or he wouldn’t.

He really, really just needed to shower.

When Stiles woke up, bleary and overheated in the middle of the night, he wasn’t surprised to find his bed full of teenage werewolves.

He just had no idea what he was going to do about it come morning.

Stiles woke with a start when his alarm started blaring. He groaned, nuzzling into the warm pillow under his cheek as he made a truly pathetic noise while clinging to the last dredges of sleep. He knew he would have to move to turn his alarm off before his dad started shouting at him, but he just wanted five more—

His alarm shut off.

His pillow was not normally warm.

“Don’t make it weird,” he murmured against Jackson’s chest as he snuggled in even deeper.

Jackson made a sort of choking snorting sound that Stiles definitely wanted to make fun of, but before he managed to say anything a long body scooted up against his back and an arm slipped around his waist. Isaac made a happy, adorable sleepy sound as he spooned up behind Stiles’ body, his fingers slipping under his t-shirt and drawing out some of his still-lingering pain.

“This is nice,” Isaac said against his neck.

Stiles made a noise of agreement as he tangled his legs up with Jackson’s, and totally ignored the way his heart skipped a beat when the other boy kissed his temple.

It was nice. It was really nice, and Stiles let himself drift on the edges of sleep as he cuddled with two boys who had once been his best friends. Years and years ago, waking up in a tangled pile of limbs had been normal for him. They’d had sleepovers nearly every weekend and they hadn’t yet grown out of sharing a bed.

And from what was happening this morning, they still hadn’t grown out of it.

Before he could say anything potentially embarrassing, his second alarm started going off.

“Ugh,” he muttered before he climbed over Jackson to the beautiful cacophony of Jackson’s protesting. With a grin, he said, “Shower’s all yours,” as he got out of bed.

Stretching his back, Stiles found himself feeling… settled. More settled than he’d felt in weeks. Months, really, if he was being honest with himself.

He didn’t know what it meant or if it meant anything or nothing or if it meant everything, so instead of dealing with it he pulled on a pair of jeans from a cleaner pile on his floor and went downstairs in his sleep shirt. He was pretty confident that Jackson and Isaac would be able to find their way around his room.

Besides, it wasn’t like he’d changed his room up all that much in the last five years.

His dad was sitting at the kitchen table when Stiles shuffled into the room. There was coffee brewing, thank god, so Stiles got four pieces of bread into the toaster and totally ignored the look his dad was sending him.

It was his rule, after all! Sure, it may have been a few years since the rule was enacted, but he’d come up with it!

Dad’s gaze turned very judgmental when the shower turned on, but thankfully Isaac saved him from having to speak. He turned towards the entryway to ask what he wanted on his toast and absolutely did not blush when Isaac trailed into the kitchen with Stiles’ red hoodie hanging off his frame, half-zipped and falling just a little too short.

Tall bastard.

It was adorable.

“G'morning, Papa S,” Isaac murmured, eyes completely closed, before he beelined to Stiles and planted his face in his neck.

Right there.

In the middle of the kitchen.

Ridiculously, Stiles threw his hands into the air and exclaimed, “I’m not doing anything!”

Isaac muttered something that got lost in his skin as his dad laughed at him.

Rude!

Before Stiles could say anything else, Isaac straightened up and asked, “Do you have any blackberry jam?”

“Middle shelf. Stiles makes sure to keep a jar in there,” Dad said casually. Stiles sent him a betrayed look as Isaac shuffled around, and he got his own toast topping of choice out of the cupboard as Isaac went through the fridge.

He plated up the toast and put two more pieces in for Jackson, even though the pretentious douchebag probably ate something like organic Greek yogurt bowls, and decidedly did not look up when Isaac settled at the counter right beside him.

Stiles did look up when Isaac cleared his throat, and then completely ignored the look Isaac gave him when he popped the seal of the unopened blackberry jam. Stiles absolutely did not blush as he coated his two slices in heart-healthy nut butter that tasted absolutely nothing like peanut butter despite the label’s claims otherwise.

As quickly as possible, Stiles crossed the kitchen and sat down across from his dad, thankful for the reprieve of Isaac’s all-knowing glaze and cuddly limbs.

It was short-lived, though, because his dad raised an eyebrow and asked, “Nothing going on, son?”

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the “p”.

His dad hummed and went back to his paper. Small freaking mercies.

They settled into a quiet breakfast after that. His dad asked Isaac about school, and Stiles soaked up the conversation even as he kept his mouth full of food. He was way too tired to deal with the fact that Isaac was eating breakfast with them, and he was definitely too tired to deal with the fact that Jackson was upstairs getting ready.

He was even less prepared for Jackson to breeze into the kitchen with a charming greeting, grab his plate of toast, and beeline directly to the table.

Jackson trailed his fingers across Stiles’ shoulders as he made his way around the table, looking polished and poised in a completely different outfit than he’d been wearing the night before. Something caught his attention and—yep, underneath his bomber jacket was Stiles’ one and only polo shirt.

God, werewolves.

His dad waited until Jackson had sat at the table before he started up the interrogation. Leaning forward in his seat, his dad steepled his fingers and gave Stiles a firm look.

“Stiles, why the hell didn’t you tell me you had people spending the night?”

“It’s Jackson and Isaac! They don’t count!” Stiles said quickly.

“Kid, that’s not an acceptable answer,” his dad said with an eye roll.

“Th-that was our fault,” Isaac said quickly. “I thought—I was hoping that the open door still stood?”

Oh, that was good. Stiles hadn’t thought about their open-door policy in years, but Isaac was smooth for bringing it up. A few weeks after Jackson had found out he was adopted, he’d started showing up randomly and stayed for days on end. After a month or so, his dad had managed to weasel the truth out of Jackson—the boy was seeing how long he could disappear before his adoptive parents noticed he was missing and reached out to him.

Most of the time, he ended up going home before they realized he was even gone.

When Dad found that out, he’d pulled Jackson and Isaac aside and very seriously told them that they’d always have a place in their home—and, really, their family—and that they were both welcome to come over at any time, for any span of days, as long as they adhered to the normal house rules.

Once he had permission, a little Isaac started showing up, often quiet and insisting on keeping all his layers on.

And by the look on his dad’s face, he was remembering all of that too.

Hell, he could see his dad giving in. Instead of relenting, though, he asked, “Y’all remember that?”

“I-I hope that’s still okay, Papa S,” Isaac said quietly, his eyes down on his plate. “I… uhm, the friend I was staying with—he uhm—Jackson came and got me, and I… I’m sorry, I—”

“Ah, hell kid,” Dad said, rubbing a hand down his face. “You know that you boys are family, right?”

Isaac nodded, but it was Jackson who quietly said, “Yeah, Papa S. We know.”

“Good,” Dad said. “Now, while the door is always open, I expect at least one of you to let me know if I’m housing you, okay?”

“I… uhm, if it’s okay, Papa S, I might—”

“Whenever you need, for as long as you need, alright?” Dad said reassuringly.

Isaac’s face went pink as he nodded. Without trying to, Stiles caught Jackson’s eye, and the same soft look that he knew he’d find on his own face was reflected across the jock’s.

Fuck.

Fuck, this was going to be a problem.

Before they finished breakfast, Dad made a point to mention that the guest bedroom hadn’t been used.

Because he was a terrible, no-good parent.

Stiles tapped his pen against his thigh in a desperate attempt to focus on something other than the way Jackson and Isaac were talking about—of all fucking things—the lacrosse season and how they thought the team would do next year. Apparently, Isaac cared way more about the sport than Stiles would’ve guessed, and it made his chest feel fragile.

Stiles had only joined the team for Scott, but Isaac had already been a player. Had Stiles intruded? Had he forced Isaac to be around him when he didn’t want to be? Stiles didn’t know, especially because Isaac didn’t seem to have any problems hanging around him now.

Even though Stiles hadn’t invited them over and he definitely hadn’t told them to hang out in his room.

The stimulus was giving him a headache. He tried closing his eyes and counting backwards from twenty, but it didn’t do anything to ease the burning pressure that had formed behind his right eye. He counted again, but Jackson and Isaac were just talking louder and louder and Stiles—

“Shut up!” Stiles snapped, twisting his chair around to where Jackson and Isaac were sitting on his bed. “Can you not fucking see that I’m trying to study?”

Jackson raised an eyebrow but it was Isaac who snapped, “Watch the attitude.”

“Watch the attitude?” Stiles repeated incredulously, staring at the two of them in shock. “Did you two miss the memo where you’re in my house and in my room?”

“Papa S said we could be here,” Isaac said, his eyes glowing gold as his lip pulled back in a snarl.

And he was right. His dad had invited them over, for as long as they needed.

Stiles knew that. He knew that Isaac didn’t have anywhere else to go, so he clamped his mouth shut and spun back around to his desk so he could get his stuff together. He crammed his notebook into his bag and didn’t even bother putting his stuff back into his pencil case—he just tossed it all into his bag so he could leave as quickly as possible.

He didn’t say anything as he got up and left. Stiles had no idea what the hell the other two boys were doing in his space and he honestly couldn’t bring himself to care, not anymore. He’d asked again and again since they’d first shown up after the warehouse, and all he knew was that Derek had been a dick so Isaac had left.

Jackson still hadn’t explained what the fuck he was doing hanging around and Stiles was too annoyed to care anymore.

If they wanted to hang out in his room, they fucking could.

“Stiles, no, wait—” Jackson said, but Stiles was already making his way downstairs.

What the fuck ever. He could study—and sleep, since he couldn’t even fucking do that in peace—on the couch.

Stiles didn’t wait for the other two the next morning. He had no interest in driving them to school after he’d spent the fucking night on the goddamn couch just so he could study for his last exam. It was bad enough that they’d invaded his goddamn house—they could get themselves to school.

Dad had given him a curious look when Stiles had filled a travel mug with coffee, but neither of them had said anything about it. Dad didn’t need to know that they’d had… something. Not really a fight, but not not a fight, either. Whatever it was, Dad didn’t need to know about it, because Stiles would never make him feel like he had to choose between them.

Because Stiles knew that however much Jackson and Isaac meant to him, they meant more to his dad. He’d forgotten, maybe, how much of a parental figure he’d been to all three of them, but yesterday morning made that really clear.

His dad loved Jackson and Isaac, and Stiles wasn’t going to take that away from any of them.

So he’d filled up a travel mug and he’d changed his shirt in Roscoe, and he’d left without them.

His phone buzzed as he was pulling into the school parking lot. The cafeteria had breakfast, and Stiles needed something greasy and fattening to sit through his last exam, which just so happened to be with Harris.

God. Why was life so cruel?

The text message was from Jackson. Stiles was dreading reading it just from seeing his name on the screen, and he braced himself as he clicked on the notification and unlocked his phone.

ure an asshole

Stiles locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

He didn’t care.

Stiles had no idea why he looked up, but one second he was picking at the leftovers he’d taken for lunch and the next he had locked eyes with Allison across the cafeteria. She was staring at him, her lips twisted down into something between a pout and a frown, her hair pulled up away from her face and her eyes striking.

For an endless moment, all he could see was the way she’d sat at her kitchen table and watched as he was dragged through her house. He could feel the hands on him, the way that the goddamn henchmen had gripped his upper arm tightly enough to leave behind a ring of bruises that was still healing.

His heart was racing.

A warm hand settled on his thigh, and Stiles forced his eyes away to look over at Jackson who was crowding into his side and nuzzling at his shoulder.

Right there.

In the middle of the cafeteria.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Stiles asked, surprised. Isaac sat down in front of him, blocking his view of Allison. “What are either of you doing?”

Surprised, but not exactly upset.

After Jackson’s text, he hadn’t thought that either of them was going to approach him at school. Hell, he wouldn’t have even minded if that was the case, but… well, he didn’t know if they were planning on crashing at his house again and it definitely would’ve been pretty freaking awkward if they were.

At least they’d get a chance to work things out now, maybe? Besides, They weren’t friends again, but—but for the first time in years, it felt like maybe they could be.

And this? The easy affection and absolute boundary-crossing closeness? The way it didn’t seem to even matter that Stiles had snapped at them? This was just par for the course with them.

Or at least it had been.

“You stink,” Jackson murmured against his shirt.

He didn’t pull away, so Stiles raised an eyebrow in Isaac’s direction. The other boy swallowed his bite of apple—stolen from Stiles’ kitchen—and quietly explained, “Your scent just spiked with fear.”

Which was absolutely not what he had been expecting either of them to say.

So they were just moving on. Got it.

In an effort to keep up with what was apparently going on, he asked, “What does fear smell like?”

“Stink,” Jackson deadpanned.

Stiles snorted even as he popped a chip in his mouth to give himself a second. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share, but if Jackson and Isaac were going to be sticking around—which was all sorts of things that Stiles couldn’t think about right now—he should at least tell them something.

Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that, despite all their flaws, Jackson and Isaac weren’t Scott.

“I… you know I was taken by Gerard the other night,” Stiles said slowly. Isaac nodded, and Jackson seemed to press even closer into his side. “Right. Well, a few of his henchmen grabbed me from the lacrosse field and took me back to their place. I had no idea what was going on at first, but I figured that someone was pissed at my dad. I was relieved when they threw me down a flight of stairs and I realized that Boyd and Erica were there with me.”

Isaac whined at the mention of his former packmates, and Stiles reached out to lace their fingers together without thinking about it.

“Gerard didn’t seem to care that I was human. I don’t even know if he knew my dad was the sheriff or was just so confident that nothing would happen to him that he didn’t care. Either way, I stopped feeling relieved the first time he kicked my ribs in.”

Even thinking about it now, though, the worst part had been knowing that Erica and Boyd were there too. That they’d been there before Stiles had even shown up, and that they hadn’t been let out with Stiles. Despite everything that had happened the last few days, Stiles had thought about the two of them often.

He’d thought about Allison, too.

“She was there,” he whispered, eyes on the table. “Allison, she—she was there. I heard her when they first brought me in, but I had a sack over my head and I couldn’t see anything. She… she knew it was me, though. She asked why I was there and then they took the bag off. She didn't do anything.”

“What the fuck,” Jackson growled darkly. Stiles covered the hand on his thigh with the one not tangled with Isaac’s to keep him from doing something stupid.

“Gerard let me go as a warning to Scott that I refused to pass on, but… Allison knew about me, and she knew that Boyd and Erica were in that basement,” he admitted.

It was silent for long enough that Stiles took his hand back from Jackson and forced down another few chips before they started to taste like the copper tang of electricity.

After another minute, Isaac whispered, “Derek said they never showed back up.”

“Fuck… do you think they ran away?” Stiles asked quietly.

“They were talking about it.”

“It makes sense with Derek being such a shit fucking Alpha,” Jackson muttered. He finally de-planted his face and started picking at his lunch, but none of them seemed very hungry.

“I’m sure he’s been trying his best,” Stiles tried, even though he had no idea if that was true.

He didn’t know a lot about Derek, and all that he did know didn't paint the… best of pictures. But he did know that Derek lost his entire family when he was only a teenager. He knew what the boy had looked like, sitting alone in the Sheriff’s station the night of the fire, and he knew what Derek had looked like that first day in the preserve.

Stiles had lost half his family, but Derek? Derek had lost everyone.

So yeah, he was a dick, but Stiles was willing to give him some grace.

Squeezing Isaac’s hand, he did his best to sound reassuring as he said, “I’m sure that they’re okay.”

Isaac smiled, but it fell flat.

“I can’t believe I actually survived the whole year.”

Isaac snorted even as he knocked their shoulders together. “Derek told me about some of the stuff that went down earlier this semester. Did you really set his uncle on fire?”

“I mean, technically Allison set him on fire since he caught the bottle I threw,” Stiles pointed out. “Besides, Jackson threw something at him too.”

“Yeah, a bottle of beer,” Jackson said as he reclined his head back.

They were sprawled across the bleachers because Jackson wanted to “catch some sun”. The last bell had rung an hour ago, but none of them were in a rush to get anywhere. After a week of Jackson and Isaac sticking by his side, Stiles had come to expect their company to the point where it was almost weird when they didn’t have a class together or they were a few minutes late getting to his locker.

And that wasn’t even considering what it was like at home. Stiles’ house hadn’t been so… so lively in years, and it was nice having the other boys around when his dad was working. He hadn’t really realized how lonely he’d been over the last few months, not with all the running around that he’d been doing, but whenever there wasn’t a supernatural emergency, he’d been alone.

He’d been alone a lot.

Now, Stiles could hardly even shower alone, which—that brought to mind a whole slew of images that he did his best to push away, knowing that Jackson and Isaac would be able to smell just what he was thinking about.

“It was a lot,” Stiles said idly. “I’m pretty excited that it’s summer, though. No more early morning alarms mean I can have as many all-night video game binges as my heart can handle.”

“Think again, Sti,” Jackson said with a snort. “There’s no way in hell you’re keeping us up all night playing video games.”

Raising an eyebrow, Stiles pointed out, “You know, you could just go home. I didn’t actually invite you into my bed, asshole.”

Even though he was joking, whatever he said must have hit too close to him because Jackson tensed and immediately went to get up. “Whatever. I don’t have time to waste on you losers, anyway.”

“Oh my god, shut the hell up, Jax,” Stiles snapped even as he forcefully pulled Jackson back down. The other boy lost his balance and fell back directly into Stiles’ lap, and he huffed out a breath of air even as he wrapped an arm around Jackson’s waist to steady him. “I wasn’t kicking you out.”

Jackson didn’t say anything right away, but he did rearrange himself so he was sitting astride Stiles’ lap. It was pretty much as good as an apology in Jackson-speak, so Stiles rubbed his cheek against the other boy’s shoulder and leaned heavier into Isaac’s side.

The sun was kinda nice. Stiles was even wearing a t-shirt, so his arms were bound to get some colour. He leaned his head back and tried not to think too hard about how nice it was to have Jackson and Isaac back in his life because he knew he’d get all sappy and mushy if he did.

Ugh. Last days.

Another moment passed, and then Jackson let out a shuddering breath.

“I can’t… it smells wrong,” Jackson whispered. “I—I always knew they didn’t really care about me, but it… I can smell how much they despise me.”

“Fuck, Jax,” Stiles murmured into his shoulder. He tightened his grip on the other boy’s side as he said, “You could have said something sooner.”

“What would I have said? It’s fucking pathetic,” 

“It’s not pathetic,” Stiles said sternly. “They’re the ones who adopted a child that they were supposed to love unconditionally. It’s not your fault you were taken home by assholes.”

“Sti’s right,” Isaac murmured. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t e-either of our faults that our parents suck.”

“Besides, Dad’s totally fine with spreading the Stilinski family love,” Stiles told them. Then, he said, “Yeah, that sounded weird.”

Still, it broke the tension. Jackson snorted and leaned over briefly to rub his cheek against the top of Stiles’ head before he pushed himself to his feet and started walking down the bleachers.

“C’mon losers, I’m hungry.”

Stiles laughed, but he still followed.

After sharing an eye roll with Isaac, of course.

“There’s my boys!”

Stiles laughed as his dad popped a confetti gun over their heads. He made sure to turn around to close the front door, which gave him a second to take in the awed looks on Jackson’s and Isaac’s faces.

His heart did something that Stiles tried to ignore as he threw his arms over their shoulders and tugged them in close.

“Oh, that’s perfect, hold that—” It took his dad a few seconds to get his phone up, but they held still as he pulled up his camera. This was absolutely nothing new, and for the first time in the last week, the shock of familiarity didn’t hurt.

“Eyes closed,” he whispered, and found himself burning with a blush when both boys took that as an invitation to press a smacking kiss to his cheek just as he heard the clicker sound from his dad’s phone.

“Now that is going on the wall,” his dad said proudly. “My boys are growing up! Next thing I know, you’ll be off to college and leaving me all alone!”

“We’ve still got two more years, Papa S,” Isaac murmured sweetly, darting forward to hug his dad.

Dad seemed kinda surprised, but he was quick to pull Isaac into a traditional Stilinski-bear hug. Stiles caught the way he blinked up toward the sky and knew it meant he was trying not to cry, which made something in his own chest feel soft and achy.

The hug lasted a bit longer before his dad cleared his throat and started ushering them back outside.

“Alright, enough of that, c’mon, out you go,” Dad said, herding them back toward the door. “It’s the last day of school, and that means—”

“You’re taking us to Rosie’s?” Jackson asked excitedly, fighting in front of Isaac and Stiles to get out the door first.

His dad’s laugh curbed any irritation Stiles may have felt at being elbowed in the kidney, and he walked beside Isaac at a normal pace.

Jackson was already standing at the passenger door with a wide, eager freaking grin on his face that was so adorable Stiles nearly combust into flames. From the sappy look on Isaac’s face, the other boy wasn’t faring any better.

They shared another look, and wordlessly got into the back.

Stiles listened to his dad and Jackson on the way to the diner. He realized, all at once, that Stiles wasn’t the only one who lost something when his friendship with Jackson and Isaac had fallen apart. Sure, Stiles had known that his parents had always wanted more children, but he’d sort of always figured that his mom would have been the driving force for that.

Listening to his dad quiz Jackson about how he was doing in school and what was going on with the lacrosse team made him rethink that assumption. Because seeing his dad like this, watching him comfort Isaac over the last week… Stiles had lost his best friends, yes, but maybe his dad had lost something really important too.

Isaac’s fingers were warm when they slipped between his own, and he sent the other boy a thankful smile as he held on for the rest of the drive.

“We don’t have to do it tonight, Stiles,” Dad said calmly when Stiles sat across from him at the kitchen table.

It was a nice offer, but, “I promised you I would.”

“You also look like you’re facing a firing squad,” his dad joked, but it fell flat. 

Likely because that’s how Stiles felt. It was one thing to tell his dad he was going to come clean, and it turned out that it was another thing entirely to actually tell him what was going on.

Especially considering what was going on was… not super believable. Honestly, Stiles was pretty sure the conversation they needed to have would have gone better if Stiles had done something illegal. His dad could totally handle him being a criminal—hell, he’d probably been preparing for that for years already—but werewolves?

Even Stiles sometimes thought they were a lie, and he was so thoroughly involved with the supernatural he’d never be able to get away.

“Yeah, this isn’t… I don’t really know how to start,” Stiles admitted sheepishly as he dropped his eyes down to his hands.

More than that, he didn’t want to ruin the night that they were having. Going to Rosie’s with his dad, Jackson and Isaac had been more fun than he ever could have imagined. It was better than Stiles’ memory; mostly, because it was actually real. If someone had told him a week ago that they would have reinstated his childhood tradition, he would’ve laughed in their face—and then probably gone somewhere to cry.

Because this? This was everything that Stiles had wanted for years. Once he’d pulled himself out of his hole of grief and forced himself to move on, Jackson and Isaac had been too far away for Stiles to reach, and so he’d simply moved on. He found a friend in Scott and devoted himself to the other boy with a single-minded determination that, looking back, was probably unwarranted.

But it’d kept him from thinking too much about the two boys he’d left behind, and it’d kept his broken heart from spilling over.

And now they were back.

They were here.

Actually, they were literally here.

“You don’t get to steal the show, babe,” Jackson said as he sauntered into the kitchen. “I basically had a front-row seat for this shit; I’m not missing out on the big reveal.”

“We thought it would be helpful if we were here to fill in any gaps or… act as proof,” Isaac added as he sat down next to Stiles.

“Proof?” Dad asked, both of his eyebrows high on his forehead. “What the hell are you going to tell me that you need these two to prove?”

“So much, Papa S,” Jackson said wisely. “You’re gonna wanna strap in.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Jax,” Isaac chastised. He turned to his dad, and said, “It’s really not that big of a deal, Papa S. He’s just dramatic.”

“Oh, as if I could ever forget that,” Dad said, sharing a laugh with Isaac as Jackson blushed and crossed his arms.

His pout was not cute.

Not at all.

But it was distracting, and the teasing lightened some of the weight on Stiles’ shoulders.

“I don’t know where to start,” Stiles admitted with a deep breath..

Then, because he had always been as much of a drama queen as he was an asshole, Jackson shifted into his beta form.

Isaac huffed, rolled his eyes, and did the same.

“Right. Well, I guess we can start here,” Stiles muttered under his breath. “Dad, werewolves are real.”

And then he kept going.

First, Stiles told his dad about how he snuck out with Scott to find the dead body. He took full responsibility and admitted that going out into the preserve was his idea. He talked about how they didn’t find anything and how Stiles took the fall so that Scott wouldn’t get in trouble with Melissa. In starts and stops, he explained the following days, weeks, talked about figuring out that Scott was a werewolf, and then figuring out how to keep him under control.

Jackson growled when he talked about the mishaps he and Scott had faced when they were getting everything sorted out, so he pressed his foot forward and rested his bare toes against the warm skin of Jackson’s ankle.

Isaac whined when Stiles detailed the absolute terror he’d felt when the alpha had taunted him at the high school and how guilty he’d felt blaming it on Derek when he hadn’t really thought it’d been him, so he reached out and twined their fingers together.

He talked about those first couple of months and how horrible it had been until finally the alpha was gone.

Only, they hadn’t had a break. Jackson interjected when he could, adding in details from his perspective of events. Stiles was a little surprised to find out just how much the other boy had noticed, but as Jackson wrapped his foot around Stiles’, he had to wonder why.

Stiles had always been aware of Jackson and Isaac—why was it so hard to believe that they’d kept track of him, too?

Isaac took over when Stiles’ throat got too hoarse. He mentioned his dad only briefly and didn’t go into detail about what Derek offered him. Stiles knew that Isaac had been the first one to be bitten, and he could only imagine what Derek would have promised Isaac for him to take the bite, and it wasn’t anything good.

When they started to talk about the Kanima, Stiles reached out his free hand and laid it palm up on the table. After a few seconds, Jackson took it.

Together, they told the Sheriff about the Kanima. Isaac spoke about the death of his dad, Jackson explained missing time and briefly talked about not knowing why, and Stiles talked about how terrifying it was to be running after another monster when he was still having nightmares about Peter. Isaac told them about why Derek had grown his pack, and why he’d chosen a ragtag group of misfits to give the bite to.

They talked about the Jungle. Stiles told his dad about Deaton telling him about his spark, about how he’d lined the building in mountain ash but hadn’t felt anything while doing it. Jackson and Isaac talked about that night from their perspective before Stiles told everyone what happened with Victoria Argent.

He talked about Matt and then told them about how Gerard took control, and how that made everything so much worse. He told his dad about how stressed he was trying to run after Scott and keep him out of harm’s way when the other boy refused to do anything to keep himself safe. They took turns detailing the following weeks, and Stiles talked about how they’d figured out the truth of who the Kanima was.

He told his dad about being kidnapped by Gerard. Jackson and Isaac squeezed his hands supportingly, and he drew as much comfort from their presence as he could. Jackson gave an abridged version of Lydia saving him with not the power of true love, and Isaac explained how Derek had been a massive dick to him when they’d gotten back to the abandoned train depot he’d been living in.

Then, it was quiet.

It was really, really quiet.

And Stiles hadn’t ever taken silences well.

“I know that I probably should have told you, but I needed to keep you safe. There's… there’s no way that you would have stayed out of things if you’d known, Dad. You’re the Sheriff, and you’re a good one, and I know that being the Sheriff means something important to you. If I had told you, you would have wanted to get involved but the supernatural world doesn’t care about the law.”

His dad didn’t say anything right away. The silence was heavy, and Stiles squeezed Jackson’s and Isaac’s hands as he waited.

After another long moment, his dad blew out a long breath and ran a hand down his face. “That wasn’t your decision to make, Stiles.”

“Why the hell not?” he asked, because while he should have told his dad, it hadn’t even entirely been his secret to tell! 

“I’m the parent! I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of you!” his dad snapped, and that—

“But you didn’t!” Stiles shouted, pushing to his feet. His chair tipped over behind him, and the sound of it hitting the floor was loud in the silent room. “You didn’t take care of me, did you?”

“Kiddo—” his dad tried, but Stiles slashed his hand through the air and the man’s teeth clicked shut.

“No. No, I love you, Dad, but you stopped having that type of authority over me when you checked out and I had to keep us going.”

Taking a half step back, Stiles wiped uselessly at his face. “I knew that you would put yourself in harm’s way so I didn’t tell you because I can’t lose you. I don’t—I didn’t have anything left.”

A second later, he was in his dad’s arms.

For the first time since the supernatural invaded his life and everything went to shit, Stiles let himself fall apart.

He was in his dad’s arms, Jackson and Isaac at their side, and he knew he was safe.

Stiles wasn’t sure exactly how they ended up tangled together in Stiles’ bed, but he wasn’t going to complain. He was feeling all types of emotionally worn out after the reveal and subsequent shouting match. His skin felt too tight and his limbs felt too big, and when Jackson had ushered him into bed, Stiles had followed.

Now, he was lying half on Jackson, who was leaning against a pile of Stiles’ pillows. Isaac was lying in front of him, their legs tangled together.

It was nice.

It was really nice.

“Are you okay, Sti?” Isaac asked him softly, his lashes dark where they fluttered against his cheekbone.

He was so pretty that it almost hurt.

Shrugging as much as he could with his shoulder nestled into Jackson’s side, he said, “Yeah. As okay as I can be, I guess?”

“He took it pretty well,” Jackson pointed out.

“After I yelled at him,” Stiles muttered under his breath.

No one said anything for a while. Stiles wasn’t entirely sure why Jackson had pulled him into bed or why Isaac had crawled in after him, but it was ridiculously comfortable. Even after a week of sharing a bed, this was the closest the three of them had been. They were actually cuddling and that… well, Stiles didn’t know what that was.

He sure as hell didn’t know what it meant, either.

Jackson cleared his throat and whispered, “I’m so sorry we left you.”

Which was so far from what he expected to hear that it took his brain a second to compute.

“What? No you didn’t,” he said firmly, not liking the feeling twisting in his gut.

“Yeah, we did Sti,” Isaac whispered. When Stiles looked up, his eyes were wide and wet.

Reaching forward, Stiles wrapped his arm around Isaac’s waist and tugged him close. Jackson grunted when Isaac shifted to rest against him, too, but he didn’t complain about the added weight.

“Neither of you have anything you need to apologize for, seriously.” Stiles protested as he slipped his hand under Isaac’s t-shirt. “We left you too!”

“I wouldn’t have let you do anything about it, and you know that,” Isaac told him, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

“That doesn’t mean—”

“No, it doesn’t. But it happened. We all fucked up,” Isaac said before he dropped his eyes. “I should have… I should have reached out, maybe, it was my fault, it—”

“God, Isaac, that’s not—”

Shifting forward, Stiles kept his weight on Jackson as he leaned over Isaac. The other boy’s eyes were wide when Stiles cupped his cheek and thumbed over his bottom lip, and his next breath shook out of him as he pressed into the soft skin.

“Sti,” Isaac whispered, his breath warm against Stiles’ thumb. “Please.”

Stiles didn’t wait for anything else.

Kissing Isaac like this, curled up in his bed with Jackson underneath them, felt right. It was so much better than the first time they’d kissed, hidden away under the bleachers, too nervous for anything to feel good for long, and missing Jackson.

There wasn’t anything like that now. Now, Stiles was able to focus on the plushness of Isaac's lower lip as he trapped it between his own. Jackson was with them, and the shuddering breath he took washed over him as Jackson’s warm breath hit the side of his face. Isaac whined, something canine that shot through Stiles’ belly, and he shuffled even closer.

“God,” Stiles whispered against Isaac’s mouth. “Again. Kiss me again.”

Isaac did. This time he pressed into the kiss, and Stiles tilted his head so the angle was better. His belly pooled with warmth even as he slid his hand higher, digging his fingers into the expanse of Isaac’s back as the other boy nipped at his bottom lip in a way that made him feel like he was going to explode.

“Fuck,” Jackson swore, sounding just as breathless as Stiles felt. “Holy fuck, you’re both so hot.”

Stiles sucked in a deep breath as he pulled back. Isaac’s face was dusted pink and his eyes were still half closed. He was so hot that Stiles moaned, turning his face and pressing it into the curve of Jackson’s neck to give himself a second.

After he’d caught his breath, he pushed himself up until he could see Jackson properly.

“I’m sorry that you weren’t there last time,” Stiles whispered as he brushed his fingers across the hard jut of Jackson’s jaw. The other boy sucked in a sharp breath, and Stiles smirked when he noticed Isaac nipping at his chest. “It wasn’t like you thought, I promise.”

“I asked Stiles if he wanted to try it out,” Isaac whispered, voice low and sweet. “You had practice and waiting for you was boring.”

“That didn’t mean—” Isaac did something that made Jackson gasp, and Stiles grinned even as he pressed at the boy’s bottom lip with his thumb. “That didn’t mean that you two should have been making out without me.”

“We weren’t making out,” Stiles said. Then, with a grin, added, “This is making out,” before he leaned in and kissed Jackson.

And he really kissed Jackson.

For their first kiss, it was hot and heavy. Stiles was pretty sure that was the perfect first kiss for them, but he was too focused on the way that Jackson was licking at the seam of his lips to really think too deeply about it. Opening his mouth, Stiles settled more of his weight on Jackson and let himself get lost in the hot, wet feeling of their kiss.

Time dragged on. Stiles was definitely aroused, but it felt secondary to the drugging closeness that was making his heart pound against his chest. Jackson’s hand squeezed his ass, and Stiles whined into their next series of open-mouthed kisses.

“Stop neglecting me,” Isaac whined.

Jackson laughed as he pulled back, and his voice was gravel-deep when he said, “Sorry, baby, our bad.”

Then. Stiles got a front-row seat to the absolutely hottest thing that he’d ever seen in his life.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, whining when his dick twitched at the sight of Jackson and Isaac making out. “Holy shit!”

The other two broke apart with a laugh, and Stiles shot forward to press a smacking kiss to both of their kiss-swollen lips.

He settled himself back against Jackson’s side, ignoring the weight of his own erection as the other two kept kissing lightly.

Yeah. This was better than the last time he’d kissed Isaac.

This time, it was right.

Stiles’ heart was racing when he jolted awake, pulled out of sleep by the sudden awareness that someone was in his room. With his heartbeat in his ears, he tried his best to stay still just in case whatever had broken into his room didn’t have supernatural senses, when something settled on his bed.

“Hey, Stiles, baby, it’s okay,” Jackson’s voice was soft and warm, and something about the rumbling timbre of his words was so soothing that Stiles felt himself relax immediately.

“Sorry,” he whispered, curling closer to Jackson’s side. “Nightmares.”

“Don’t I fucking know,” Jackson muttered in agreement.

“You two ‘kay?” Isaac asked sleepily. When Stiles peered over, he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and his hair was sticking up adorable. “Yer bein’ loud.”

Because it was entirely impossible to ignore a sleepy Isaac, Stiles rolled back over and glomped onto the other boy. Isaac didn’t seem to mind, because he opened his arms and tangled their legs together when Stiles scooted even closer.

“Mhm, cuddles,” Isaac sighed happily, and Stiles barked out an incredulous laugh at how freaking adorable he was.

“Cuddles,” Stiles agreed.

Then, with his heart racing for an entirely different reason, shot forward and pressed a quick, smacking kiss just beside Isaac’s mouth.

Jackson growled from behind him, and a second later, the other boy was pressing against his back.

“I want in on the kisses,” Jackson growled and then leaned over Stiles to give Isaac a very thorough morning kiss.

“Oh my god,” Stiles whispered. Before he could say anything else, though, Jackson was pushing him flat on his back and kissing him just as thoroughly, and Stiles tangled his fingers with Isaac’s just to hold on. “Well, that’s a way to wake up.”

Jackson snorted even as he stood up.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Isaac asked with a pout that Stiles moved in to kiss away.

Jackson didn’t answer. Instead, he snorted again and left the room, which sent all sorts of mixed signals that Stiles decided to ignore in favour of ducking down and lying against Isaac’s chest. The taller boy seemed just as willing to keep up the cuddles, and he made a pleased noise when Isaac wiggled an arm between them to hold him properly.

This was what he had missed most. Scott was tactile, sure, but Stiles had grown up with Jackson and Isaac and the three of them had always acted like personal space was merely a suggestion with each other. They’ve been cuddling since their very first day of Kindergarten when they were assigned cubbies to each other, and that hadn’t changed over the next seven years.

If anything, they’d just gotten more affectionate the older they got. It hadn’t escaped Stiles’ notice that they were doing a lot of mirroring, but Stiles’ parents hadn’t ever shied away from affection and Stiles knew that all three of them looked up to his mom and dad. It made sense that they’d hold hands and hug and cuddle anytime they were even vaguely horizontal.

When Isaac had asked to kiss him all those years ago… Stiles had only paused because Jackson wasn’t with them. And, looking back, he really fucking wished he hadn’t let himself be swayed by the hopeful gleam in Isaac’s eyes.

But they were together again. Stiles didn’t need to dwell on the past because they were together again, and now his dad knew about the supernatural and they… well, now they did things like kiss, apparently.

Stiles had no idea exactly what that meant, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask about it. He knew where his strengths lied and going with the flow usually wasn’t one of them, but now?

He wasn’t going to do anything to risk having his best friends back in his life.

“Are you two still sleeping?” Jackson demanded as he walked back into the room.

“We’re cuddling, Jax,” Stiles said primly as he looked over to find Jackson standing in his doorway with a tray of… “Wait, did you make us breakfast?”

Sitting up eagerly, Stiles pushed a pillow behind him to support his back as he bounced in place. Isaac wasn’t far behind him, and he asked, “Jax, did you make us breakfast in bed?”

There was an awed quality to his voice, and Stiles knew he was remembering the same Sunday mornings, from a time when his mom was still alive and Jackson would slip out of bed to help her make them all breakfast.

She’d set up a tray of food on his end table that Jackson would serve them as she brought another tray to share with his dad, and the memory hitting him unbidden made his eyes sting with tears.

Jackson was in the same boat, though, with flushed cheeks and glassy eyes that totally diminished the glare he was sending them.

“Jax,” Stiles breathed. He wanted to say something more, needed to say something more, but the words got caught in his throat.

Isaac squeezed his hand, and Stiles pulled comfort from the touch.

“Don’t make it weird,” he muttered even as he passed the tray over to Isaac before climbing into the bed. “It’s just breakfast.”

“Jax…” Stiles whispered. Isaac laced their fingers together even as he started arranging things on their tray so the food they liked the most was closest to them. In the end, he only managed to whisper a soft, “Thank you.”

Jackson made a noise, and Stiles let the way that Isaac was teasing him about being the perfect little house-husband wash over him as a smile that he couldn’t fight down crossed his face.

Yeah, this… Stiles wasn’t going to question this.

Not when it was so good.

Stiles was whistling as he walked into the living room, debating whether or not popcorn would be worth the effort. Sure, he just had to pop a bag into the microwave, but did he really wanna stand in the kitchen for two whole minutes?

He passed behind the armchair where Jackson was sitting and felt a smile pull at his lips.

“Hiiya, Jax,” Stiles said as he ruffled Jackson’s hair. “Whatcha watching?”

“What the fuck, Stiles?” Jackson demanded as Stiles flopped back on the couch.

“Wha—”

“Don’t do that again,” Jackson told him seriously, an epic scowl on his face.

“Whoa, what’s the big deal?” Stiles asked as he rocked back in his seat.

Jackson growled as he said, “I don’t like people touching my hair.”

Stiles blinked a few times as he tried to get his brain to process that. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Jackson, it was just… growing up, Jackson had begged for them to play with his hair. Hell, he could still remember storytime at the library, when Jackson would sit at his mom’s feet and she’d run her fingers through his hair as she read whatever book they were listening to that week.

It was a memory that Stiles hadn’t thought of in years, but as Jackson flattened his hair back down, Stiles felt disoriented with how different things work.

“I… okay? You just—you never minded before?” he said softly, not liking the sudden clench around his heart.

“We aren’t eleven anymore,” Jackson snapped before he pushed himself up and left the living room.

Whoa. That had not been what Stiles was expecting when he came out to see if Jackson wanted to watch a movie. He considered going upstairs, but he knew that Isaac was reading a new book he’d snagged from Stiles’ shelf, and he didn't want to bother him too much.

Stiles wasn’t sure how Jackson could go from being so sweet just that morning to literally storming out because Stiles had ruffled his hair, but… he took a deep breath and tried not to let it hurt too much, because Jackson was right.

They weren’t eleven anymore.

“Jackson, we aren’t locking you up.”

“But I could hurt someone!” Jackson growled angrily, his eyes flashing blue in a way that still made Stiles’ heart ache for him.

“You won’t,” he said easily as he flopped back against the rickety old couch in his basement.

Hanging out down here with the door at the top of the stairs deadbolted from the outside—courtesy of his dad, who thought Jackson was being just as ridiculous as Stiles did—was the only concession Stiles was willing to make for Jackson’s fear. He could totally understand why the newly wolfed out were’ was so afraid, but both he and Isaac thought that his fears were unfounded.

Ever since becoming a real boy (or whatever the hell had happened in that warehouse), Jackson hasn’t had any issues with his control. Sure there was some growling and eye flashing, but he wasn’t popping claws or going on homicidal rampages.

Which was something Stiles had made the mistake of saying the day before when they were first talking about how to handle the full moon, and the haunted look in Jackson’s eyes was something he wouldn't ever be able to forget.

But! His point still stood—Jackson hadn’t had any issues with control since being reborn as a wolf.

And that meant that Stiles was not chaining Jackson up in his basement.

“Look, bondage isn’t my kink,” Stiles said as he patted the couch cushion beside him. Isaac was on the floor, sorting through a box of VHS tapes. “Just come sit down. I promise you’ll be fine.”

“You’re not even a wolf,” Jackson muttered even as he listened to Stiles and crossed the basement to sit beside him. Somehow he gracefully flopped onto the sofa, and then not-so-gracefully shuffled to the side until they were glomped together. “I have no idea why you think you’re the authority on control.”

“I’ll have you know that I single-handedly taught Scott how to control himself!”

Jackson snorted and pointed out, “Yeah, by flinging lacrosse balls at his dick.”

“Hey, how’d you know about that?” Stiles asked suspiciously. 

“It wasn’t like using the lacrosse field was inconspicuous,” Jackson told him as he pressed his nose into Stiles’ shoulder. “I saw you two.”

Grumbling about stalking weirdos who spy on people, Stiles lifted his arm around Jackon’s shoulders and tugged him into his side. He obviously wanted to get his cuddle on but was too embarrassed to ask, which was very typical of Jackson. The other boy immediately ducked his head down and started sniffing at Stiles’ armpit, which was…

“Hey, that is my kink,” Stiles muttered, ignoring the heat in his face. “Don’t go crazy.”

Jackson growled lowly, but he still moved his face out of Stiles’ armpit. Isaac looked back with glowing gold eyes and a smirk that made Stiles’ belly feel warm, but thankfully, he didn’t say anything about it.

Which was really good, because Stiles had not meant to say that aloud.

Thankfully cuddling seemed to abate some of Jackson’s concerns about losing control, so he made sure the other boy was resting comfortingly against his side before turning his head to rub his chin against Jackson’s temples. He couldn’t actually smell anything like the other two boys could, but he liked the idea of spreading his scent on them.

And yeah, he was pretty sure they all reeked of each other at this point, but still!

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Isaac announced as he popped a movie into the DVD player and turned on the ancient television they kept in the basement. He bounced back across the room and straddled Jackson’s lap, tilting his chin up with his fingers. “Just focus on us, okay, Jax?”

Swallowing heavily, Stiles watched with interest as Jackson’s fingers trailed up Isaac’s thighs before slipping under his shirt. “What the hell did you put on?”

Isaac laughed even as he tumbled to Jackson’s other side, shifting around until his legs were spread out across both their laps. Stiles immediately reached out and wrapped his fingers around Isaac’s bony ankle, rubbing his thumb across the birthmark he had there.

“We’re not watching porn,” Isaac said. Then, sounding absolutely joyful, he exclaimed “We’re watching something even better!”

Stiles laughed as the opening credits for Sailor Moon R started to play, and he didn’t miss the small, pleased smile on Jackson’s face.

Yeah, they didn’t have anything to worry about.

Stiles was having a heart attack.

Okay, he might not actually be having a heart attack, but he definitely felt pretty freaking close to having a heart attack!

“Wait—I need—a break,” he called weakly, panting as he heaved a gigantic breath that did nothing to ease the burning in his lungs.

Deciding that his lungs were more important than his pride, Stiles flopped back into his ass and then completely gave up and let himself starfish onto the warm grass. The sun was hot where it was bearing down his face, and he knew he was probably going to burn even though they’d only been outside for…

“Gah, how hasn’t it even been an hour yet?” Stiles complained as he tossed his phone away.

Jackson and Isaac looped back around and stopped near his head. Isaac, who was kind and wonderful and perfect, leaned his head forward and blocked out the sun.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever had the honour of knowing,” Stiles said solemnly.

Isaac snorted and shook his head, his curls bouncing in the wind like some sort of majestic forest spirit.

Which, considering the fact that he was a freaking werewolf, wasn’t all that far off.

Then, since he was actually sort of awful, moved just enough that sunlight was hitting half of his face.

“And what am I?” Jackson asked.

Before Stiles could answer, the other boy was stepping over and dropping onto his lap.

“Oh my,” Stiles breathed as Jackson’s ass wiggled against his crotch area. “You’re in my lap.”

Snorting, Jackson trailed his hands up Stiles’ bare belly. He shivered as he did his very best not to immediately pop a boner.

“Yeah,” Jackson said, his fingers tickling under Stiles’ pec. “Problem?”

“Absolutely not,” Stiles replied, and because Jackson was smirking at him like some sort of superior asshole, used his core muscles to sit up and trail his own hands around Jackson’s bare sides. “Think you can keep up?”

Then, he kissed him.

Because that was something they did now.

Ever since the other night when they’d made out in Stiles’ bed, they’d been kissing… kind of a lot. Usually in the mornings and at night when they were all in bed together, but sometimes just randomly.

Like the other morning when Isaac had pecked him on the lips as Stiles had passed him a coffee. Or when Jackson had delivered Stiles a warm towel, pulled the shower curtain open enough to see his face, and spent exactly twelve seconds sucking on his tongue.

Stiles had no idea what it was or what it meant, but he’d gone sixteen very long years without anyone to kiss, and now he had two someones who seemed to want to kiss him as much as possible.

And Jackson was definitely down with the kissing now, Stiles thought, a little dazed, as Jackson nipped at his bottom lip and then freaking attacked his mouth.

Doing his best to keep up, Stiles focused on the way Jackson’s lips were toying with his own, letting out a deep groan when the other boy sucked at his bottom lip. He scratched his nails down Jackson’s back to feel him shiver and whined when Jackson settled more of his weight onto his lap.

Before he could process that, Isaac was scooting up behind him and pressing bodily against his back.

“We’re supposed to be looking for Erica and Boyd,” Isaac whispered, but his breath was hot against the back of Stiles’ neck.

“We’ll get back to it,” Jackson said before he leaned over Stiles’ shoulder to make out with Isaac.

Which. Wow, hearing that up close and personal was really hot. Hot enough that Stiles had to rest his forehead against Jackson’s shoulder as he trailed his hands up and down his back to give himself something to focus on.

Isaac’s hands trailed around his sides before he started brushing his fingers against Stiles’ belly. The touch was soft and teasing, but it made heat bloom under his fingers. He’d never been turned on by someone else like this, and Stiles’ next breath shuddered out of his chest when Isaac tugged at the thin hairs below his belly button.

Then Jackson rolled his hips down, and Stiles nearly came in his pants.

“I-If we don’t stop—” Stiles whined when Jackson’s teeth bit into his throat. “If we don’t—I’m gonna come.”

“Do you not wanna come, baby?” Isaac asked him sweetly, his lips brushing against the shell of Stiles’ ear and doing things to him that he didn’t even know could be done.

“I don’t wanna walk around with wet underwear,” Stiles protested, totally ignoring the whine in his voice

“I’ll carry you,” Jackson growled. Then, he placed his hand over Stiles’ very obvious bulge and rubbed.

“Oh god,” Stiles squeaked.

Then he came.

Like, right then.

The heel of Jackson’s palm pressed just right against the head of his cock and Stiles was off, pleasure rising and cresting all at once. He tipped over the edge, coming in his pants as ecstasy whited out his brain and made it impossible for him to focus on anything but how good it felt to have Jackson and Isaac surrounding him, the scent of their musk heavy in his nose after their run and their bodies warm against his own.

That seemed to do it for Jackson, who shifted around until he was rutting against the crease of Stiles’ thigh. He didn’t know what to do with Jackson in his lap, so he trailed his hands down and cupped the jock’s ass as he started to kiss his neck before he was even done rolling through his own orgasm.

“Jax,” Stiles whined. Jackson’s skin was salty, and he smelt so much like boy that it sent another shockwave of pleasure rocking through him as Isaac’s hands kept trailing up and down his belly.

Turning his head to the side, Stiles met Isaac for a messy kiss even as he kept playing with Jackson’s ass above his pants. His erection was hard against his hip, and Stiles did his best to raise his leg so Jackson would have better leverage to hump him.

“I can’t stop thinking about you two,” Jackson growled. “Dream about you every fuckin’ night, I can’t—

Jackson cut himself off with a harsh noise, so Stiles swung his head back to meet his eyes. They were glowing blue and he was beautiful in the afternoon sun.

Something in Stiles’ heart twisted, and he leaned in to bite Jackson’s throat to push away the rush of emotion.

That seemed to be just what Jackson needed because claws pressed into the small of his back as sharp fangs pressed against his shoulder. Neither broke skin, but Stiles could tell Jackson was close.

“Come for us, Jax,” Stiles whispered, leaning more of his weight against Isaac and groaning as the boy rolled his hips against Stiles’ back. “Come on, baby, come for us.”

“Fucking hell,” Jackson growled as his hips shuttered once, twice, and then a third time before they jerked against his hip erratically. “Fucking fuck fuck.”

Isaac snorted as Stiles kissed up Jackson’s throat, placing a smacking kiss on the sharp jut of his jaw as Jackson rode out his orgasm.

“Was that good?” Stiles whispered, and totally didn't preen when Jackson made a come drunk noise.

“I’m close,” Isaac whispered suddenly, so Stiles moved Jackson up enough that he could twist around and palm over the long line of Isaac’s erection. “Fuck, Sti!”

Grinning, Stiles nipped at the skin above Isaac’s nipple before he closed his mouth around the bud. He’d never really had sensitive nipples, but he’d seen enough porn to assume that some guys did, and he definitely lucked out because Isaac gasped and arched up into him. Stiles curled his fingers around the length of his cock as best as he could through the tight track pants he was wearing as he teasingly scraped his teeth over Isaac’s hard nipple, and that did the trick.

Isaac moaned loudly as his cock started pulsing under Stiles’ palm. He rubbed over the head even as he sucked on Isaac’s nip, focusing on the two points of contact so he didn’t lose himself in his own head.

Making someone come was really kinda overwhelming, and when Isaac made a fucked-out sort of gasping sound, Stiles eased off and pressed kisses up and down the other boy’s chest.

“Fuck you two,” Jackson growled.

“God, I can't believe I lost my virginity in the freaking preserve,” Stiles muttered once he’d pillowed his head against Isaac’s clavicle.

“You and me both, Sti,” Isaac said with a giggle as he ran a hand down Stiles’ head.

Jackson rolled his eyes, but Stiles didn’t care.

He’d just been sexed up. He didn’t have a single care in the whole freaking world!

Stiles muttered a string of very creative cuss words under his breath as he lifted up the coffee pot and found that grinds had somehow slipped through the filter and were filling the bottom of his freshly brewed life-juice.

“Life is cruel,” he muttered as he dumped out the pot of steaming hot coffee. “What did I ever do to deserve a fate this cruel?”

“Do you really want an answer to that?” Isaac asked. He had a smirk on his face when Stiles’ looked over, and it was so stupidly attractive that Stiles just stuck out his tongue.

Then he started on another pot of coffee, because he’d spent most of the night tossing and turning as he angsted over losing his virginity.

“I, ugh, I was wondering…” Jackson’s voice trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant. Stiles took a break from scoping coffee to look over at him, concerned, but he was staring down at the kitchen table. “I, ugh—”

“You can ask us anything, baby,” Isaac whispered sweetly.

Then, because Stiles was who he was, added, “We promise not to kink shame you.”

Jackson shot him the finger but he also cracked a smile, which meant his attempt at lightening the mood was successful. He finished getting his new pot of coffee ready before moving over to the table and snagging the chair beside the other boy.

“Seriously, what’s up Jax?” he asked kindly, doing his absolute best not to sound like he was kinda freaking out.

They hadn’t talked about the sex thing. They hadn’t said anything about the sex thing and Stiles had no idea what that meant. All he knew was that three days ago they’d had mutual orgasms in the preserve and Stiles hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them or about the way that no one was saying anything about them.

He didn’t know if this was about them, but if it was…

Jackson took a deep breath, and quietly asked, “I want to tell Danny.”

“What?” Isaac asked, his voice surprisingly flat.

“He’s my best friend,” Jackson insisted. “I… I’ve never lied to him about anything, and him not knowing what’s going on—it’s killing me.”

“You can do whatever you want,” Isaac snapped as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“I think… I think what Isaac means is that this is as much your secret as it is ours. Hell, I don’t even have a secret. If you wanna bring in Danny, that’s fine with me.”

“I—yeah, I know, but it’s not just my secret, I—”

Jackson looked at Stiles helplessly before shooting a look over at Isaac. He had no idea what the were’ was picking up, but it couldn’t be anything good.

“Issy, what’s—”

“No, that’s just fucking great. Read in whoever the hell you want,” he snapped.

Then, Isaac got up and left.

Confused, Stiles watched him leave the kitchen and listened to him stomp up the stairs before looking back at Jackson with wide eyes. The other boy looked just as shocked before he met Stiles’ eyes and his face pulled down in a frown.

“What the hell did I say?” Jackson asked incredulously.

Biting into his bottom lip, Stiles considered what he should say. He wasn’t completely sure why Isaac was upset, but…

Well, Stiles hadn’t grown up the Sheriff’s kid without picking up an uncanny ability to read people, and if there was anyone he knew how to read, it was Jackson and Isaac.

“Isaac… he’s—look, we both fucked up. Isaac was the one who was left behind because you and I were too stupid to work our shit out,” Stiles explained quietly, wincing when he saw Jackson’s expression close off before he blew out a breath from his nose.

Then, Jackson added, “Then the two of us got new best friends and Isaac… didn’t,” in a way that made it so painfully obvious that they’d always known each other so incredibly well.

Still, Jackson looked wrecked when he realized that. Stiles leaned forward, and Jackson met him halfway. Taking a breath, Stiles pressed their foreheads together and let his eyes flutter closed as Jackson breathed them in. This was maybe the most surprising of all—the cuddling was familiar and the sex was completely new, but this sort of charged intimacy was a mix of the two that left him reeling.

He knew that it meant something, but he had no idea what that was.

“I’ll go talk to him, okay? Why don’t you invite Danny over for Sunday?” Stiles offered, still speaking in a whisper.

He felt Jackson’s breath against his lips, but he didn't do anything about it.

Not yet.

Not when this moment still felt so fragile.

After another moment, Jackson blew a warm breath out of his nose and asked, “Will your dad mind? Sunday is his day off.”

“Nah, he loves Danny,” Stiles said with a laugh, happy that the moment had lightened.

Jackson made a noise of confusion before he asked, “Didn’t your dad arrest him?”

“Yeah, years ago. He’s always asking about him now,” Stiles explained. Then, in a fit of daring, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Jackson’s lips. “Text him. We’ll come find you soon, okay?”

“‘Kay. Thanks, Sti,” Jackson whispered genuinely, and Stiles sent him a smile even as he finally stood up.

Isaac was up in his room, curled into a tight ball on Stiles’ bed with the pillow that Jackson favoured clutched in his arms. It was so adorable that Stiles snagged a quick photo before crossing the room and fitting himself to Isaac’s back.

He didn’t say anything at first. When they were kids, Isaac had been shy and unsure and hesitant in a way that had sometimes made Stiles a little sad. As they all got older and spent more time together, it was pretty clear that part of Isaac’s demeanour was his asshole father. The bite had seemed to ease some of that timidness and Stiles had been glad for it, even when it meant he was taking after Jackson and walking around like a raging dick.

Over the last couple of weeks, Isaac had been more and more like the kid that Stiles knew and not the baby werewolf who’d snarked at him for the first time in years.

And Isaac had always been a fan of cuddles when he was upset.

“You okay, Issy?” Stiles asked quietly as he slipped his arm around Isaac’s waist to pull him back against him. “Those were some big feelings.”

Isaac snorted at the familiar phrase and some of the tension drained out of him. Stiles made a pleased noise as Isaac cuddled back into him, and he scooped his legs up to curl himself around Isaac’s body as he nuzzled against his neck. They still hadn’t talked about anything, but Stiles pressed a few warm kisses to Isaac’s neck just to hear the other boy’s breath shudder.

“I… I was so lonely,” Isaac whispered. Stiles’ eyes started stinging immediately, and he pressed his forehead to Isaac’s nape. “You both—after the f-fight, it… you did both leave me behind.”

“I’ll never be able to apologize enough for that,” Stiles said seriously, “but I promise, Issy, if you let me, I’ll spend the rest of our lives showing you how sorry I am.”

“No, Sti, you don’t—I get it,” Isaac protested. He started to shift around, but Stiles shook his head against his neck so he could keep pretending he wasn’t crying. “Jackson didn’t know who he was and your… your m-mom she—”

“I’m the one who made the fight worse,” Stiles whispered. “It wasn’t your fault. It was me and Jackson being too fucking volatile like always, and you—y-you—”

“You both found someone else,” Isaac murmured. His voice was heavy, and the way his voice cracked made Stiles’ heart crumble apart in his chest.

Stiles didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything he could say, because Isaac was right. After the fight, Stiles had started sitting with Scott during class and a few days later, Jackson was playing with Danny at recess.

Isaac… hadn’t ever found anyone else. Not as far as Stiles could ever tell.

“I missed you every single day,” Stiles whispered. “I know that doesn’t change anything, but I—”

“Yeah, you weren’t ever really subtle about staring at me,” Isaac said in a deadpan that set Stiles off into a peal of giggles.

Still, it broke the tension.

“I spent some time with Erica, and Boyd let me sit with him at lunch some days,” Isaac finally said. Quieter, he added, “I really hope we can find them. I don’t—they said they wanted to leave, but I didn’t think they would.”

“Maybe my dad can call around,” Stiles suggested and he squeezed Isaac a bit tighter.

The other boy nodded, and a few seconds later he took a deep breath and finally relaxed into the bed completely. He yawned loudly, and Stiles giggled again.

“Jax, come here,” Isaac whispered as he squeezed Stiles’ hand and brought it up to press a kiss against his knuckles.

A second later, Jackson was pounding up the stairs so quickly that Stiles couldn’t fight down a giggle as he buried his face in Isaac’s hair. The blonde looked sheepish when he stopped in the doorway, his hand on the frame as he eyed the two of them.

“C’mere,” Isaac said, firmer this time.

With soft eyes, Stiles watched Jackson cross his room and climb onto the bed in front of Isaac. He still seemed unsure, but when the taller boy reached out for him, Jackson was there right away.

“I’m so sorry I was such a fucking jealous dick,” Jackson whispered. Stiles could hear them kissing softly, and he smiled even as he closed his eyes.

They were okay. For now, they were still okay.

Stiles had grown up in and out of the station. Back when his dad had just been a deputy and his mom had worked at the library, his parents would take turns bringing him to work with them so they didn’t have to send him off to preschool and could save on daycare fees. The most incredible part of it all was that both the sheriff and the library director had been totally fine with a toddler running amok in their workplaces.

When he’d started going to school, they’d done the same thing for the few hours between school and when they’d go home for dinner. If his dad was working a weekend shift, Mom would bring them around the station with baked goods for the other officers and a travel mug of coffee for his dad.

Growing up, Stiles hadn’t thought anything of it. He’d always been a loud kid, but he’d been pretty easily distracted. Give him a book about something he was interested in and probably shouldn’t be reading, and he’d sit quietly for hours.

When his mom got sick… Stiles spent a lot of time at the station that year, and a lot of that time was spent with Jackson and Isaac at his side.

When they fell apart, Stiles spent more time than ever before at the station.

Which all meant that hanging out there on a Thursday afternoon, three weeks into summer vacation, was pretty normal for him. Hanging out in the armoury maybe wasn’t all that normal, but Stiles had been thinking more and more about how he was going to keep himself safe against all the things that went bump in the night when he was nothing but a lowly human.

He didn’t have claws or teeth or freaking super strength, and he didn’t think his biting sarcasm was going to keep him going for much longer. He was only just able to sleep through the night without a hit of werewolf pain drain, but his ribs still twinged when he stretched too high.

If he was something more…

He didn’t want the bite. Stiles liked being human, and he figured that being a werewolf with ADHD was bound to end badly. But it was hard being the only one who didn’t heal. The only one without super strength. The only one who was so fucking vulnerable.

What the hell was the point of staying human if he was going to be taken anyway?

Being more had its draws, sure, but… he wanted to stay human, and that meant doing something about it.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to focus back on why he was in the armoury in the first place and went through disassembling and assembling a standard-issue handgun. His dad had made sure he was familiar with the guns he kept in the house when Stiles was old enough to get into stuff, and they’d gone to the range every few months his entire life.

He didn’t have claws or teeth or super strength, but he knew his way around a gun and maybe… maybe that’s what he needed.

The door buzzed as it was unlocked, and Stiles put down the gun he’d been aimlessly holding to turn and look at his dad.

“Hey kid, you’re still in here?” Dad asked as he made his way over. 

He was sporting a layer of stubble that was hedging closer to a beard than anything Stiles had seen on his dad’s face in years and he eyed the facial hair curiously for a moment.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

“I… yeah, I’ve been thinking,” Stiles said hesitantly as he put the gun down. He’d reassembled it twice when he was lost in thought.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” Dad asked softly. In a quiet voice, he said, “Knowing that there’s things out there that are dangerous, that stand as a threat against the ones you love, and knowing there’s so little you can actually do about it.”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathed, leaning back against the man’s bulk when Dad put an arm around his shoulder. “I’m sorry I lied for so long.”

“I get it, kiddo. I don’t like it, but I do get it.” They were both quiet for a moment. It was nice, standing like this with his dad without any secrets hanging between them. It had been so long since they could just exist in the same space without something coming between them that he almost forgot how well they got along. “Why don’t we head to the range next week? We can shoot a few rounds after my morning shift Tuesday.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“‘Course not, kid. Besides, you wanting to protect yourself? I’ll do anything I can to make sure you’re safe,” Dad told him seriously.

Stiles nodded but didn’t say anything right away. He didn’t want to arm himself, but he knew that he didn’t really have a choice. Maybe when it had just been him and Scott, but now?

Stiles wasn’t going to do anything to lose Jackson and Isaac again.

And no way in hell was he letting anything touch his dad.

“So, kiddo, you wanna tell me what’s going on with the two boys that are still living in your bedroom?” Dad said as he clapped a warm, comforting hand on his shoulder.

And Stiles?

Stiles immediately burst into tears as he folded himself into his dad’s arms.

“Oh shit,” Dad cursed before he folded him up into a tight hug.

Hugging his dad had always been the greatest comfort Stiles ever sought, and it was no different now. His dad still smelt like stale station coffee and old spice, and his arms were warm when they engulfed him in a comforting squeeze.

His dad grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back to make eye contact, and asked, “Kiddo, what’s going on?”

Running his hands through his grown-out buzz cut, Stiles said, “I don’t freaking know. I—Dad, I don’t know.”

“Hey, kid, it’s okay,” Dad said soothingly as he pulled him back in.

Stiles gave himself another minute to soak up his dad’s warmth before he pulled back. Only, before he could apologize or say anything, his dad started to talk.

“Listen, kid, your m-mother and I… we used to talk about it a lot.” Dad’s voice was rough next to his ear, so Stiles squeezed him tightly as he held on. “The three of you. It wasn’t—it was clear as day to us that you weren’t just going to be best friends forever. The way the three of you got on? Even as kids, your mother was trying to figure out how the three of you could get married.”

Stiles laughed wetly, remembering exactly what his dad was talking about.

In the third grade, Jackson realized that their parents lived together because they were married and had proposed to Stiles and Isaac so they could have sleepovers every night. Only Stiles’ parents had been okay with it, and his mom had been the biggest supporter imaginable.

Stiles could still remember sitting on the couch as they flipped through wedding magazines, Jackson pointing out all the things he wanted at his wedding so Stiles could cut them out and Isaac could carefully glue them onto a vision board. At eight, none of them had any idea what a vision board was, but his mom thought it was the cutest thing.

She’d even kept the board.

He was pretty sure that it was packed away with the rest of his mom’s stuff, and the memory made him smile as his heart stopped twisting itself around inside his chest.

He didn’t have to know what was going on with Jackson and Isaac, because it was the three of them.

And the three of them? They’d been forever since they were kids.

“Oh my god.”

Stiles wasn’t sure if his heart could physically burst from his chest, but he figured that if it was going to happen, coming home to find Jackson and Isaac curled up together on his bed, napping in a sunspot, would be what would do him in.

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and snapped a quick photo before he quietly placed the paper bag on his desk without looking away.

This was what his dad had been talking about back at the station. This was the forever spanning out before him.

And Stiles wasn’t going to let anything take it away from him.

“I got you something.”

“Hmm?” Jackson asked as he nuzzled against Stiles’ chest.

He bit down a joke about canine behaviour and smiled fondly down at Jackson’s messy mop of blond hair.

“I grabbed you and Isaac something on the way home,” Stiles murmured even though his heart was racing.

Jackson made a curious noise, and Stiles watched as he visibly tried to shake himself awake. Stiles hadn’t wasted any time before he’d crawled into bed to join their afternoon nap, but Isaac had woken up and complained about feeling dirty. Jackson had sleepily reached out for him just as the shower had started, and now the two of them were tangled together on his bed.

Jackson was still mostly asleep, cuddling closer and closer in a way that was impossibly endearing. The other boy’s nose scrunched up against Stiles’ chest, and he sleepily asked, “Why’re you laughin’ at me?”

Chuckling, Stiles said, “I’m not laughing at you,” and let out a whole peal of giggles when Jackson nipped at his skin and called him a liar.

He didn’t say anything else. Since he wanted to give Jackson and Isaac their little gift together, he let himself float in the warm afternoon sun, enjoying the feeling of Jackson’s even breath against his skin.

The shower turned off a few minutes later, and Stiles shuffled over so he was lying on his back and could see his bedroom door.

“Issy? Can you grab the bag?” Stiles asked as Isaac came back into the room. He was in a short pair of exercise shorts that were hanging low on his hips in a way that was indecent, and Stiles literally whined when Isaac lifted an arm to run a towel through his hair.

That woke Jackson up, because he rolled forward to press their bodies together, and said “Mhm, you’re so sexy, baby.”

Nodding, Stiles made a noise of agreement even as he ran his hand down Jackson’s side to squeeze his ass and urge him closer.

“I just showered,” Isaac complained, but he still dropped the towel and crossed the room. “You two look good like that.”

Stiles grinned before he leaned down and met Jackson for a kiss. They hadn’t fooled around since that day in the preserve, but he was horny enough from just seeing Isaac shirtless that he was pretty sure they were about to do it again. Seeing as how Jackson seemed to be on the same page about giving Isaac a show, he felt pretty confident that they were fooling around again.

Jackson seriously knew how to kiss, and he whined as the other boy took control and nipped at his bottom lip. Letting his mouth fall open, Stiles slipped his hand into Jackson’s pants to squeeze the plush skin of his ass, digging his nails into the skin when Jackson whined.

Then, fingers landed on his crotch.

“Oh my god,” Stiles whispered as he pulled back and looked down to where Isaac was undoing his pants. “Isaac, you’re naked.”

His voice was strangled because he was strangled. Isaac had dropped his pants, and a long, slim cock was jutting out of a pile of light curls and curving up towards his belly button.

A penis. A real. Live. Penis.

“Have I ascended to heaven?” Stiles asked breathlessly as he lifted his hips to let Isaac pull his pants off. He got with the program as quickly as possible and tore off his shirt, ignoring Jackson when he started grumbling about being displaced. “Should I feel insecure? I feel like I should be feeling insecure right now.”

“Why the hell would you feel insecure?” Jackson asked as he took his own shirt off.

Oh god. He was so hot.

“Uhm, look at yourself?” he asked as Jackson started slipping off his pants. “Oh, that’s another penis.”

Jackson laughed even as he tossed his pants off the bed. He rolled back into Stiles, and his penis smashed against his thigh and then speared a line of cool dampness across his skin.

Before he could start freaking out about the way Jackson’s dick was touching him, the other boy turned his head and kissed him. Really kissed him. Stiles made a helpless noise as Jackson freaking attacked his mouth with his mouth, nipping at Stiles’ bottom lip and pulling his mouth open before slipping his tongue inside. It was wet and kind of messy but so unbearably hot that Stiles’ belly contracted as he desperately staved off a very embarrassing orgasm.

Jackson didn’t stop kissing him though, which meant he was so fully focused on kissing back and keeping himself from coming that he didn’t feel Isaac climb back onto the bed until someone grabbed his dick.

“Oh my god you’re touching my penis,” Stiles breathed in awe as Isaac’s long, thin fingers wrapped around his cock.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

“I’m going to come, like, right away,” Stiles admitted and wasn’t even embarrassed about it when Jackson growled and started sucking on his throat in a way that Stiles was definitely certain would leave a bruise. Isaac smirked, looking like some sort of forbidden fallen angel where he was straddling his lap, and then started stroking his dick. “Oh god!”

Stiles lasted about four strokes before he came with a grunt, shooting up over his stomach and making a mess of Isaac’s hand. He shuddered through it, whining when Jackson started humping his thigh with freaking vigour. A few seconds later, warm come was splattering across his side and dripping down his ribs in a way that was way too hot.

“Holy shit,” Isaac breathed as he pressed a come-wet hand into the crease of Stiles’ thigh. “You’re both so hot.”

Before he could think too much about it, Stiles pulled himself up with every ounce of core strength he possessed and nosed up under Isaac’s arm. He couldn’t get the image of Isaac drying his hair out of his head, and he nipped at the side of his pec before nosing towards his pit. Breathing in deeply, Stiles felt freaking high on the clean scent of Isaac’s body, and placed an open-mouthed kiss against the center of his pit when Isaac lifted his arm,

Then, he bit down and Isaac came.

All over their laps.

Looking down as he nuzzled against wiry hair, another pulse of arousal beat through him when he saw Jackson’s hand working over Isaac’s cock and milking a few beads of pearly come from under his foreskin.

It was so hot that his brain sorta melted, and he flopped back against his bed even as he bucked Isaac forward so the taller boy would fall against him.

He cuddled in right away, and Stiles widened his legs so Isaac fit better in the cradle of his thighs. His pubes rubbed all up against Stiles’ spent cock in a way that felt ridiculously good, and he moaned weakly even as he closed his eyes.

A few seconds later, Jackson started rubbing a hand up and down his side soothingly.

Only—

“Jax, are you rubbing your come into our skin?” Isaac asked sleepily.

Stiles cracked an eye to see Jackson looking at them with wide eyes and very red cheeks, so he simply said, “Thanks, baby,” before letting his eyes slip shut again.

Jackson didn’t say anything, but he did let out a pleased, canine rumble as he kept rubbing his come into their skin.

“What did you get us?”

They were still naked, which was feeling more and more normal the longer they went without getting dressed. Stiles had almost fallen asleep in post-coital bliss when Jackson had climbed out of bed to piss, and Isaac had muttered something before he pushed himself up and shuffled around to lean against Stiles’ footboard. Figuring that they were getting up, Stiles pushed himself up to sit back against his headboard when Jackson walked back into the room and flopped down beside him, still naked.

Now, his head was resting on Stiles’ thigh (which was clean and semen free). There was a patch of crusted white come next to Isaac’s nipple that his eyes kept wandering over too, and each time a possessive thrill shot through him.

He totally understood Jackson rubbing his come into their skin.

“Sti?” Jackson prompted.

Stiles shook himself out of his post-orgasm glow and started playing with the jock’s hair before he registered what Isaac had initially asked him.

“Oh,” he breathed, feeling his face get warm. Now he kinda felt silly. When he’d left the station with forever ringing around his head, it felt right to stop at a hardware store, but… “It’s nothing big or anything.”

“I love presents,” Isaac said giddily as he clapped his hands together.

Adorable.

Standing up, Stiles ignored the fact that he was still naked as he made his way over to his desk. He grabbed the plastic bag and heard metal clink together, and squeezed his eyes shut as he took a deep, grounding breath.

When he turned around, he said, “Okay, close your eyes,” and pretended that he didn’t see Isaac roll his eyes at him.

They both did, so Stiles dropped a chain into both of their waiting laps before he moved to sit back against his headboard.

Biting into his bottom lip, he said, “O-Okay. You can look.”

He watched Jackson’s face. Sure, he was a dick, but he was honest. Sometimes Isaac was too nice for his own good, and he didn’t want to see the other boy hate it and pretend he didn’t. At least with Jackson, he wouldn't hide his expression.

Which meant that he was wholly unprepared for Jackson’s entire face to soften and melt into a warm, barely-there smile as his eyes went glassy. Flicking his eyes over to Isaac, he was all but gut-punched when Isaac looked just as affected.

“A key?” he asked softly, looking up at Stiles from under his lashes.

“Uhm, yeah. Figured you’ve been here long enough. It, uhm, would be easier if you two could just get in whenever.” Shrugging like his heart wasn’t racing so loudly it was all he could hear, he said, “Dad didn’t mind, so.”

“What are they for?” Jackson asked softly.

“Oh. Right. There’s one for the house and another for the station. And, uhm, Isaac, that—the third one you have is for Roscoe.”

The other boy made a punched-out noise, and Stiles knew he was probably remembering the same promises that had pushed Stiles to add the spare to the boy’s keychain. His mom had made them both a promise, but Stiles had been the only one around for his dad to fulfill it when he taught him how to drive the Jeep.

“Jax, I know… I don’t wanna overstep, with Lydia, I—” Stiles blew out a breath as he cut himself off, knowing that he wasn’t making any sense. “I just thought it’d be easier.”

“A lizard?” Jackson asked, holding up the charm connected to the keychain that Stiles had got at the dollar store across the street.

It was small and silly, and Isaac had a matching one that was a wolf, but it was important to Stiles.

“Yeah, ‘cause even though it probably sucked, you were a kanima and I—who are you isn’t a bad thing, Jax,” Stiles said firmly. “I know you howl at the moon now, but… I don’t know, the scales were kinda hot.”

Jackson barked out a startled laugh before he flipped over and buried his face against Stiles’, taking a deep breath that he blew out unevenly. Isaac looked just as emotional, and Stiles flapped his hands helplessly.

“You don’t have to use them, I just. I thought that maybe—”

“You’re amazing,” Isaac breathed and then he freaking pounced across the bed and directly onto Stiles.

He squealed as he fell back against his pillows, but he didn’t get to say anything before Isaac was making out with him. He wrapped an arm around Isaac’s waist as his other hand threaded through Jackson’s hair as he started kissing up his thigh in a way that had him hard in freaking seconds despite coming his brain out ten minutes ago, and he whined when Isaac sucked on his tongue.

Wow. Yeah, Stiles was so ready for another round.

Stiles was chopping up potatoes to boil when Jackson came into the kitchen with a white bag.

He dropped it onto the kitchen table and kissed Stiles’ cheek—which what? They did things like that now?—and grabbed a raw potato.

To eat.

“Ugh, that’s so gross,” Stiles said even as he went over to the bag. He asked, “What’s this?” as he wiped his hands off on his apron, ignoring the way that Jackson scrunched up his nose

“Just a little gift,” Jackson said.

“Hey, wait, no,” Stiles murmured as he looked back up. “You don’t have to get me something just ‘cause I gave you a key. I wasn’t, like, expecting anything in return.”

“Just open the bag,” Jackson grumbled, but his cheeks shaded an absolutely adorable shade of pink that let Stiles know he was just embarrassed.

Frowning, Stiles pulled out one of the two items in the bag and felt his brows draw down.

“Dude, what the hell is this?” Stiles asked as he lifted the rectangular box and stared at the image on the front in confusion.

“Please don’t tell me that you don’t know what an iPhone is,” Jackson begged. “Sti, I literally have one.”

“No, I—I know what an iPhone is, you ass,” Stiles said as he rolled his eyes. “I was asking why I’m holding one?”

“Uh, because your phone is literally duct-taped together.”

“I mean… yeah? But it works? I don’t have the money for a new phone.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, so then why—”

“I bought you the phone, dumbass,” Jackson snapped. His face was blushing so darkly he was nearly red, which meant that he was really embarrassed.

“Jackson, I really didn’t need you to buy me something,” Stiles said seriously, putting down the box and crossing the room so he was in front of Jackson. “I wanted to give you two a key—it made sense, and… look, I know we haven’t talked about it, but I want you here, okay? I like having you two around.”

“Good, because we’re not leaving,” Jackson murmured. “And I know but… I have the money. Your phone is shit—I might as well spend it on something important.”

Instead of saying anything right away, Stiles leaned forward and gave Jackson a soft kiss. He let his knuckles brush the other boy’s belly as he swayed in close, but he didn’t let the kiss move past anything but a chaste press of their lips.

“Thank you, Jax,” Stiles whispered against his mouth.

Jackson huffed and rolled his eyes as he pulled back, but his smile was small and sincere.

“I also got you an Otterbox so you can’t destroy it.”

“Oh baby, you know me so well,” Stiles simpered as he eagerly went back for the bag.

He had a new phone to set up!

Mashed potatoes could wait.

“Dude, are you finally coming out?”

Jackson’s face went beet red as his expression shut down, so Stiles shot forward to grab Danny’s wrist and tug him into the house. “Danny! My man! What’s going on, big guy? How’s your summer going? I haven’t seen you in weeks! Because school is out!” he babbled as he tugged the other boy into the kitchen. He shot Isaac a look and flicked his eyes back to his front door where Jackson still hadn’t moved.

“So, Danny, can I get you something to drink?” Stiles asked, a little forcefully as he had to employ some strength to keep tugging Danny towards his kitchen table.

“Dude, what the hell?” Danny demanded, tearing his arm out of Stiles’ grip.

“Don’t “Dude what the hell” me, dude! What the hell?” Stiles shot back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why did you just accost me?”

“Accost you? I didn’t accost you!”

“Well, would you prefer kidnapped because I’m feeling pretty napped!”

“I didn’t kidnap you, oh my god why would you—“

“What else would you call dragging me away against my will?”

“I wasn’t dragging you—okay, I was, but only because you totally just upset Jackson!”

“I didn’t upset Jackson,” Danny said with an eye roll. “I was letting him know I was fine with him coming out.”

“Dude, that’s like so many different types of not cool I can’t even count them all!”

Danny narrowed his eyes and asked, “What, you have an issue with gay people, Stilinski?”

“That’d be a bit hypocritical,” he snapped back.

“Would you two shut up?” Jackson snapped from the doorway before Danny could say anything.

Stiles glared as he took a step back. “I don’t know why everyone thinks you’re so nice and calm,” Stiles muttered. “You’re just as dramatic as I am.”

“Yeah but I’m hotter,” Danny snarked under his breath, which while a little hurtful, was respectable. And true. “Jackson, you know I didn’t mean anything by that, right?”

“Still shouldn’t have said it,” Stiles muttered under his breath.

Then, Jackson crossed the room and kissed him.

Right in front of Danny.

“Oh,” Stiles whispered, looking over Jackson’s shoulder to share a wide-eyed look with Isaac. “Hi.”

“You don’t need to protect me from my best friend,” Jackson whispered. Then, he turned to Danny and said, “And you don’t need to protect me from my—from Stiles.”

Danny narrowed his eyes even further and asked, “Or Isaac?”

Jackson’s expression softened adorably, so Stiles shot forward to steal another kiss before Jackson said, “Or Isaac.”

“Cool,” Danny chirped before he transformed back into the adorable angel that everyone knew him as. “So, what’s been going on, man? You said you had something to tell me?”

“Yeah, it’s… yeah,” Jackson said, blowing out a breath. “Can we go sit down?”

“Sure!” Stiles agreed before he all but skipped out of the kitchen.

He caught Isaac’s hand as he passed, and was relieved when the other boy laced their fingers together. He led them to the loveseat, needing to get his cuddle on. He didn’t like the implication that Danny had been acting like that because he saw Stiles as the threat to Jackson’s happiness or whatever, and it left an uneasy feeling under his skin as he sat down.

Thankfully Isaac seemed to get that he wanted to be close, and he snuggled up beside Stiles as they waited for the other two to rejoin them.

Sure, he tickled his side like a dick, but he still cuddled.

“Danny is asking him about your hickey,” Isaac whispered as he pressed his face against Stiles' shoulder to stifle a laugh. “I can’t believe you didn’t put on a different shirt.”

“What do you mean?” Stiles asked, trying to see his own neck. “I have a hickey? Why didn’t either of you say anything? What if my dad saw it!”

“You didn’t notice?” Isaac asked. He tapped a spot on Stiles’ throat that did feel like the same spot Jackson had been worrying at when they’d been making out an hour ago.

“No!” Stiles hissed. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!”

“I thought you’d seen it!” Isaac protested.

Stiles opened his mouth to say something when he was hit in the face with a bundle of cloth. He blinked down at the dark red fabric for a second before his brain registered that it was Jackson’s lacrosse hoodie.

“Put that on before Papa S gets home,” Jackson told him. “He’s still weird with me and I don’t want it to get worse.”

“He’s not weird with you!” Stiles protested. “Isaac’s just a sweet baby angel who’s impossible to be mad at.”

“Why is he mad at me?”

“He’s not mad at you!” Stiles reassured quickly.

Jackson didn’t look very reassured, but Danny cleared his throat as he sat down on the couch. “What’s going on? It’s not that I didn’t expect this to happen at some point, but is that really why you asked me to come to Stiles’ house?”

Jackson flopped down beside him and, with all the tact of an elephant, said, “I’m a werewolf.”

To his credit, Danny blinked a few times and then said, “I guess that makes more sense than steroids curing McCall’s chronic asthma.”

Stiles gaped. He totally gaped.

“Wait, that’s it?” Stiles asked them incredulously. “That’s all you needed?”

“Jackson’s never lied to me before,” Danny said with a shrug. “I don’t know why he’d start now. Besides, do you have any idea how weird this town is? Ms. Flitcher literally doesn’t go out during the day. Has everyone else missed that? She won’t leave her house in the daytime.”

“Oh my god, is Ms. Flitcher a vampire?” Stiles asked, bouncing in his seat a little. “That would be so cool!”

“You weren’t always a werewolf, right? Is this about all the weird stuff going on last semester?”

“Yeah, that's why I wasn’t sleeping. I… the bite didn’t take right away. It took some time for things to even out.”

“So wait, you were bitten? Does that mean there’s, like, a head werewolf?” Danny asked curiously.

“An Alpha, yeah. They’re in charge of the pack, and because of that, they’re stronger and faster with better senses and stuff. They can also turn humans into werewolves with a bite,” Stiles explained.

Then, because Danny was Danny, he asked, “Derek Hale is an Alpha werewolf and you were hiding him in your room?”

“When the hell were you hiding Derek in your room?” Jackson demanded.

Stiles shot Danny a glare and explained, “No, he wasn’t an Alpha back then. There was another Alpha, and yes, I hid Derek in my room after I falsely accused him of being a murderer. Twice. It was a shitty thing to do and I felt bad about it, so. Ya know. Hiding.”

“Wait, was that why his house burned down?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said as he winced. “The Argent’s are a pretty crazy family of werewolf hunters and Kate Argent burned his family alive.”

“Shit,” Danny breathed. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed.

They were all quiet for a few moments. Stiles had really hoped that Kate Argent’s crazy was reserved just for her, but after being literally kidnapped by her geriatric grandfather, he suspected she wasn’t actually a one-off. After all, Allison’s mom had offed herself just so she wouldn’t turn into a werewolf.

“So, is all this why Lydia said she hasn’t seen you this summer?” Danny asked quietly, but his voice was light enough that Stiles figured he was trying to ease the tension.

“I don’t—”

“Nah, man, I get it. I wouldn’t know how to tell my ex-girlfriend that I was hooking up with my two male childhood best friends either,” Danny said lightly. “So, wait, you said that Alphas lead a pack. Is Derek yours?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said at the same time as Jackson said, “No,” and Isaac said, “Not really.”

“Wait what?” Stiles asked, turning to look at Isaac and then Jackson in surprise. “What do you mean Derek isn’t your Alpha? You can’t not have an Alpha!”

Jackson and Isaac shared a look that made Stiles feel like an outcast for the very first time, and he sank back into the couch as hurt bloomed in his chest.

“Sti, it’s not like that,” Isaac said quietly.

“Who is your Alpha?” he asked, and both boys were suddenly very interested in looking anywhere but directly at Stiles. “What? No. No way, I can’t be your Alpha. I’m just a human!”

“I don’t need to know about your sex lives,” Danny said immediately. Then, he narrowed his eyes and said, “Scratch that, I totally want to know about your sex lives. Tell me about why Stiles is the alpha!”

Stiles squawked and he lunged forward and slapped his hands against Jackson’s mouth when the other boy opened it with a dirty smirk that meant nothing good. “No! No describing my penis!”

“What's wrong with your penis?” Danny asked curiously, leaning forward.

“Absolutely nothing at all!”

“It’s a great penis,” Isaac said seriously, because even though he was a sweet baby angel, he was also evil.

Stiles groaned as he flopped onto the floor, throwing his arms over his face as he awaited the sweet release of death.

“Someone’s looking a little green,” Isaac teased from the doorway to the bathroom as Stiles took a piss.

He wondered if he was supposed to feel weird about that, but then remembered that Isaac had touched his penis with his hands. His hands!

He finished, shook himself off, then washed his hands. After he’d thought through about fifteen different responses that all sounded absolutely terrible, he stuck his nose in the air and primly said, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

Isaac snorted even as he passed Stiles the hand towel. “You sure?”

“Yep.”

“You aren’t being weirdly defensive?” Isaac asked in a leading tone.

Stiles narrowed his eyes.

Jackson and Danny were downstairs using his PlayStation, which was. A thing. It was a thing that was happening. Stiles was mature enough to admit that he didn’t really like that specific thing happening, but he was also mature enough not to say that.

“I’m just saying, I thought I was going to be the one who had an issue with Danny, but you beat me to the tree.”

“What are you even talking about?” Stiles asked, exasperated as he leaned against the bathroom counter.

“Ya know, with the way you pissed all over your territory when Danny arrived?”

Wordlessly screeching, Stiles tugged Isaac into the bathroom and slammed the bathroom door closed. “I did no such thing!” he whisper-shouted.

Isaac threw his head back and laughed. Once his chuckles had died down, he said, “C’mon! You totally defended Jackson’s honour then spent the next hour arguing with Danny! I thought you liked Danny!”

“I do like Danny!”

“Okay, so then why the arguing? And don’t you think rubbing yourself all over Jackson was a little… obvious?”

“I did not—” Stiles sputtered before Isaac broke out into another peal of adorable giggles that were not adorable at all. Narrowing his eyes, Stiles declared, “You’re an asshole,” as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Takes one to know one,” Isaac sang as he turned on his heel and let himself out of the bathroom.

Ugh.

He was surrounded by jerks!

“If you wanted to, we could, uhm, you could invite Scott over,” Isaac whispered into his hair later that night.

Stiles made a noise to let Isaac know that he heard him, but he didn’t say anything right away.

It was a nice offer. It was a kind offer. But Stiles didn’t have any desire to welcome the other boy into this new life that he was building, and he didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Me and Scott, we…” Stiles blew out a breath that ruffled the short, wiry hairs on Isaac’s chest. “The last time we saw each other wasn’t great. It’s almost been a month, and he hasn’t reached out. I mean, I haven’t either, but he said some pretty fucked up things the last time we talked.”

“W-We heard,” Isaac whispered. “It’s, uhm, part of why we came over that night. We wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

Stiles rolled over so he was lying across Isaac’s chest and pressed his face against the warm skin of his throat. The taller boy made a happy noise as he wrapped his arms around Stiles’ back and tugged him close.

“I can’t believe he’d do that to someone,” Stiles admitted, knowing that Isaac would understand what he was talking about. “After he was first turned, he was pretty insistent on finding a cure. We… Derek had told us a story about killing the Alpha who turned you.”

“Wouldn’t that have just made him an Alpha?”

Stiles snorted when he thought of that nightmare, and said, “Yeah, you’re probably right. He’d said it wasn’t real, that it was just a fairy tale, but Scott became… fixated, I guess. He wanted to be the one to put Peter Hale down and it—Scott had never been like that before. I still don’t really think he is like that, but then he did what he did to Derek and he didn’t even…”

“I didn’t know you cared so much,” Isaac said into the sudden silence when Stiles trailed off. It wasn’t anything other than softly curious, and Stiles shrugged before answering.

“I wouldn't say I don’t care about him? Yeah, he fucked up a lot, but he’s really just…”

“He’s just a kid whose family was taken away from him,” Isaac whispered, and Stiles could feel his own heartache echo in the other boy’s voice. “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

“Hey, you don’t have to feel bad,” Stiles said, pushing himself up onto his elbow to look down at Isaac. He pushed his bangs back before letting the tips of his fingers dance across the sharp jut of his cheek. “I don’t… I don’t know what it means, that you two think I’m your Alpha, but—but I’m going to do whatever I need to do to be worthy of you, okay?”

Isaac’s face shaded a soft, sweet pink, and Stiles couldn’t help but lean down and feel the heart of his cheeks against his lips.

Isaac whined as he turned his head up and caught Stiles’ mouth in a kiss. He let it drag on, sucking on Isaac’s bottom lip and using his teeth to pull at the plush skin. Isaac made a noise that sounded punched out, and it made Stiles feel like he could do just about anything.

The other boy rolled his hips, so Stiles got himself settled in the crease of Isaac’s thigh so they could rut together.

“Hey, wait, what about—” Stiles cut himself off with a moan when Isaac’s fingers slipped under the waistband of his sweats. His fingers were firm when they pressed into his ass, and he whined when they started edging closer and closer to the centre of his ass.

Oh god.

Oh god, what if they…

“J-Jackson says he can hear us,” Isaac whispered, which made things feel even hotter and dirtier “He’s gonna—gonna drive Danny home.”

“Should we wait for him?” Stiles whispered, sucking on Isaac’s collarbone.

He felt the other boy shake his head and figured that was more than enough for him. With a grin, he trailed wet kisses down Isaac’s chest until he could mouth over his nipple.

“N-No, I don’t—I don’t—Sti, baby, please,” Isaac begged, and it was so pretty that Stiles couldn’t hold himself back.

And later, when Isaac came all over Stiles’ hands and his own belly, he made sure to tense his abdomen and keep himself from coming.

After all, Jackson would probably be back soon enough.

A crash of thunder slammed through the room, and Isaac whined so high that Stiles couldn’t stop himself from wincing against the noise.

“S-Sorry,” Isaac stuttered as another shiver wracked through him. “Fuck—fuck this i-is so stupid.”

Hugging the boy tighter, Stiles ran his hand up and down Isaac’s back in long strokes. The fabric of Jackson’s lacrosse hoodie was still dryer-warm and soft, and he placed a small set of kisses along Isaac’s temple as the boy buried his face tighter against the curve of Stiles’ throat.

“It’s not stupid at all, baby,” he said softly, meeting Jackson’s eyes from over Isaac’s head. The jock nodded and left the room. “We all have fears, and they don't have to be rational to be valid.”

“Having a pa-panic attack over thunder is—” another loud rumble, and the shaking got worse, “—f-fucking dumb.”

“I still can’t go to the library,” Stiles whispered as he did his best to fold Isaac even tighter into his lap.

A moment later, Jackson was returning with a big, heavy quilt that his mom had made when they’d been kids. Isaac had always loved it, and he’d even helped her tie it off when she was finished. Stiles didn’t use it often—hadn’t, really, since The Fight—but Isaac was shaking in his lap and he and Jackson didn’t know what else to do.

Jackson climbed onto the bed and settled behind Isaac, wrapping the quilt around the boy’s shoulders. Stiles took the ends and made sure to tuck them in tight, smoothing a hand over Isaac’s curls as he did.

That seemed to help for a little while. Jackson sat at Isaac’s back, his forehead pressed between his shoulders, and the three of them breathed together through a break in the storm. Rain pounded against his windows, but that didn’t seem to bother Isaac at all.

It was okay.

It was okay, until another rumble of thunder, louder and longer than any before, all but shook his room.

Isaac started shaking even harder, and Jackson made a distressed noise from behind him that only made Stiles more alarmed.

“S-Stiles, Stiles—I, Stiles—”

“Settle, baby,” Stiles said lowly, dropping his voice into a pitch that he hoped was warm and comforting. Without letting himself overthink it, he wrapped his fingers around Isaac’s throat, applied the barest pressure, and Isaac went boneless against him. Quietly, with his tone even deeper than before, he murmured, “Good boy.”

“Thank you, Alpha,” Isaac whined as he nuzzled even higher at Stiles’ throat.

For his part, he hummed, keeping his fingers around Isaac’s throat as his brain whirled.

He’d been telling Isaac the truth the other day—he didn’t know what being an Alpha meant, but he knew that he was going to do his best to be a worthy one for Jackson and Isaac.

And if this was what it entailed? He’d hold Isaac through every thunderstorm for the rest of their lives.

“Pops, you’re off your game,” Stiles teased as he fetched their targets at the end of the range. His dad grumbled from where he was scooping up bullets from the netted catch area, and Stiles laughed at him. “C’mon, you used to be good at this!”

“I’m still good at it, you brat,” Dad muttered as he straightened his back out with a pop.

Looking over his own paper target, Stiles couldn’t help the little bead of pride that ballooned in his chest. He’d never been overly interested in guns, but he’d always been a good shot and it looked like the added pressure of needing to keep himself alive had made him even better.

Still, a regular gun would only be so effective against things that went bump in the night.

Which totally wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking about right now, so he forced out a laugh as he made his way back to the shooting area. “Keep telling yourself that, Daddio. I wonder what your deputies would think if they found out that you’re getting outshot by your delinquent son?”

“They’d probably bring you in for questioning,” Dad grumbled. “At least it’d give me a break.”

“Hey! I am the light of your life,” Stiles protested and was completely caught off guard when his dad caught him around the neck and tugged him into a half hug. Grinning, he slipped his arms around his dad’s waist and hugged him back, resting his forehead against his shoulder. “This is nice.”

“It is,” Dad agreed. “I missed time like this, kiddo.”

“I know, I—I’m sorry I—”

“Hey, none of that,” Dad admonished. “We already had the big blowout and hashed it all out. I get it, kid. I don’t like it, but that’s my own shit to deal with, okay?”

“‘Kay,” Stiles murmured as his dad kissed his head. 

“Now, we’ve already been here for an hour,” Dad said with a teasing edge that meant Stiles was going to hate whatever came out of his mouth next. “You sure you’re doing okay? Not going through any teenage, hormonal withdrawals now that you’re away from your boyfriends?”

Yep. He was right.

He pulled himself out of his dad’s grip and got to reloading their clips as his face freaking burned. God, his cheeks must have been purple they felt so freaking warm. “They’re not my boyfriends.”

His dad snorted. Then, he burst into laughter so freaking uproarious he doubled over.

“Hey!” Stiles protested. “That’s not nice!”

“Sorry, kid,” Dad said with another few chuckles. “I just. You really believed that.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes as his dad wiped tears from his eyes like the horrible, no-good, awful parent that he was. “I can’t believe you. You’re taking joy in my misery. You’re a terrible person.”

“Hey, whoa, who said anything about misery?” his dad asked, catching his arm when Stiles tried to turn away from him. His face went serious, and he said, “Kid, I wasn’t trying to upset you. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he muttered as he dropped his eyes. “Just—we’re not boyfriends. I don’t… I don’t know what we are.”

“Ah, I see,” his dad said wisely. “Just give it time, kiddo. I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”

Stiles nodded. He finished loading up the clips and then took a deep breath. “I’m, uhm, I’m also, sorta, their Alpha?”

“Is that a sex thing? I don’t think I want to know about sex things, Stiles. You still need to wear condoms with boys, you know that, right?”

“Oh my god,” Stiles breathed as his face started burning again.

Ugh. His dad was the freaking worst!

“Stiles?” Christopher Argent asked with an expression that looked an awful lot like genuine confusion. Before Stiles could say anything, Chris’ eyebrows pulled low and he said, “Allison isn’t home right now.”

“Good,” Stiles chirped with a smile that he was once told was disarming.

“Good?” Chris asked him with actual, genuine confusion.

“We’re not exactly on speaking terms,” Stiles admitted lightly as he slipped past Chris into his house. The other man started to protest, but Stiles did what he did best and kept talking. “Kinda awkward to make small talk when your friend stands by while her crazy grandfather drags you into a torture basement, ya know?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Chris demanded as he whirled around and straightened out like he wanted to appear threatening.

Stiles’ dad was the Sheriff, so it wasn’t very effective.

“What, you didn’t know?” Stiles asked as he shrugged his shoulders casually. At least, he hoped it was casual, because his heart was beating really fast and his palms were sweating. “C’mon, Chris, don’t play dumb.”

“Stiles, I’m not in the mood for games,” Chris snapped in a show of honest anger.

Interesting.

He didn’t know anything about Christopher Argent, but his family had so much freaking red in their ledger that Chris could be the most non-violent being on earth and it still wouldn’t matter. The Argent’s had committed more sins than Stiles could even quantify, and that was only taking into account the things he knew about because they’d affected Beacon Hills.

He was an Argent, but maybe he wasn’t as evil as the rest.

Well, time will tell and all that.

“Did you fix the third stair yet?” Stiles asked curiously. “I almost broke my ankle when I hit the dent. You know, seeing as how I had a bag over my head and was being blindly shoved into your basement.”

“I…” Stiles could see the moment that Chris accepted what Stiles was telling him, and it honestly kinda sucked. “No, I haven’t had the chance.”

“You might wanna get on that,” Stiles chirped as he moved into Chris’ living room. “Just in case you plan on kidnapping any more teenagers.”

“I didn’t kidnap anyone,” Chris snapped, which was actually pretty telling.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, man,” he said with a wink. He pushed his hands into his pockets to hide how they were shaking, and asked, “Hey, how’s your dear old dad doing? Still kicking or has he finally kicked the bucket?”

Chris’ face went red in another genuine show of… something. Stiles wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment or something else, and he didn’t really care. He was here because he needed something, and he had to hope that he’d unnerved Chris enough to get it.

Stiles hummed even as he spun in a circle around Chris’ living room. “Are you two moving? That’s a lot of boxes.”

The change in conversation seemed to draw him up short because it took him a second to reply.

Chris took a deep breath that Stiles pretended not to notice.

“You know the apartments on Sterling?” Chris asked in a surprising show of honesty. Stiles nodded, and Chris said, “It made sense to downsize after… everything that’s happened.”

“Interesting that you’re staying in Beacon Hills,” Stiles said, but he left it at that. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to the group thread he shared with Jackson and Isaac to let them know he was stopping at the store on the way home from the range before focusing back on Chris. Then, because his heart was still racing anxiously, asked, “So, did you snag a two-bedroom? Is that really going to be enough for the three of you? I remember her saying something about her dear old grandfather staying with her before school ended for the summer.”

“It’ll just be myself and Allison moving,” Chris said slowly. Stiles was used to people treating him like something they couldn't figure out, so it didn’t bother him now. “My father is… unwell.”

Alive, then.

That.

Stiles didn’t know what that was.

But now wasn’t the time for him to stress about it, so did his best to paste on a cheery smile as he said, “I need wolfsbane.”

“What?” Chris asked flatly, his face back to being an emotionless mask.

Stiles’ dad was the Sheriff, after all, so he noticed the way Chris’ shoulders tensed right back up.

“You know, the plant that acts as a magical poison against our growly friends?” Stiles clarified. Chris sent him a dark look, and Stiles grinned. “Some mountain ash too, since we’re speaking about magical plants.”

“Why do you need wolfsbane?” Chris asked, but this time, his tone was less scary hunter and more concerned father.

Which was kinda sweet, actually, since their only interaction had been that one time Chris threatened him at the hospital.

He did just tell the guy that his father had kidnapped him, though, so maybe that had something to do with it.

“I run with wolves, Chris,” he said simply. “I need to keep up somehow.”

Chris seemed like he needed a moment to take that in, so Stiles gave it to him. He looked around the room curiously, noting that there really were a lot of boxes stacked up. He couldn’t help but wonder where Allison was and why she wasn’t home, and if that had anything to do with the fact that Chris was seemingly getting ready to move them somewhere new.

Then the older man took a deep breath, and Stiles spoke before Chris had the chance to say anything else.

Pulling out what was kind of a low blow, he added, “Oh, and some wolfsbane bullets with an unregistered gun to go with it. After all, it’s only wolves I have to fear, isn’t it?”

“I have some supplies still in the basement,” he said evenly. Stiles didn’t manage to hide his flinch. “Why don’t you get yourself something to drink from the kitchen when I round up some supplies and bring them up? Allison won’t be home until this evening, so we have some time.”

The accommodation was more than he would have expected, but Stiles was beginning to wonder if he’d lumped all the Argents together prematurely. His father and sister were absolutely batshit crazy, but maybe there was a chance it was a recessive gene or something.

It was something to think about, if nothing else.

Stiles took a deep breath as he unlocked his front door. He had a few baggies of mountain ash, wolfsbane and mistletoe in his backpack and a very nice gun case sitting under the passenger seat of the jeep that he’d have to figure out a place for in his room. He also had two thin silver blades that had been cured in holy water, which was apparently a thing.

Once Chris had decided to help, he’d been very giving.

Helpful or not, though, having to step foot into the Argent house after what happened had not been fun, and he was more than ready for a shower.

And hopefully some cuddles.

He could really use some cuddles.

The familiar hum of the stove fan drew Stiles to the kitchen, and he spent a second staring at the way Jackson was dancing in spot as he was chopping something at the counter wash over him and ease away the lingering tension in his shoulders.

“Did you get cay—what the fuck happened?” Jackson growled as he crossed the kitchen and caged Stiles in against the wall. His eyes were glowing blue as fangs pressed into his lip lower, and he snarled as he snuffled at Stiles’ throat. “Where the hell were you?”

Before Stiles could answer, Isaac came into the kitchen with his own bright eyes and asked, “What were you doing with the Argents? Are you okay?”

“God, there’s no privacy around here,” Stiles grumbled, pitching his voice into something teasing that didn’t do anything to break the tension.

“Stiles,” Jackson growled again, and Stiles rolled his eyes even as he reached up and grabbed a fist of Jackson’s hair. The other boy whined curiously, and slurred out an “Alpha, wha—” around his fangs.

“I’m okay,” he said soothingly, tugging a little to get Jackson to bare his neck. He leaned in and pressed his lips to his Adam’s apple, nosing at the underside of his jaw on an instinct that left him feeling like a stranger in his own body. “I went to see Christopher.”

Isaac whined worriedly, so Stiles reached out his other hand and drew Isaac into his side as soon as he’d tangled their hands together. 

“I’m okay,” he said again, firmer this time. “If I’m the Alpha, then I need to be able to keep us safe. Chris was a means to that end, and he was helpful. I promise I’m okay.”

“W-Why would you—why did you lie?” Isaac whispered.

Stiles smoothed out the crease between his eyebrows as he dropped his other hand to the back of Jackson’s neck.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Stiles said quietly. He didn’t apologize, because he wasn’t exactly sorry about what he’d done, but he realized he probably could have handled that better. “I didn’t think that Chris was a threat, and I didn’t want either of you having to go near him with all the shit the Argent’s have pulled.”

“So you thought it’d be better to go alone?” Jackson asked harshly. Stiles squeezed the back of his neck, and the boy came willingly when Stiles tugged him forward to rest their foreheads together. “What the hell were you thinking, Sti?”

“I’m completely fine,” he soothed, knowing that the two of them were just worried.

“That’s not the point,” Isaac muttered. When Stiles looked over, his eyes were wet. “Lying about where you were… that’s a shitty thing to do to your b—”

Isaac cut himself off with a startled noise, and Stiles’ eyes went wide. Was he going to say…

“To your fucking boyfriends,” Jackson snarled as he pulled Isaac against his side so they could both glare at him. “Lying about where you were is a shitty thing to do to your betas and a shittier thing to do to your boyfriends.”

Stiles sucked in a startled breath as his eyes went wide.

“I love you,” he breathed, and then slapped both of his hands over his mouth.

Jackson freaking giggled as Isaac made an awed noise.

“B-Both of you,” Stiles whispered from behind his fingers. In for a penny and all that. “I… uhm, I love you both. I always have, and, uhm, I—I always will.”

“Me too,” Isaac whispered as he looked between the both of them. “I love you both so much.”

Jackson opened his mouth, but then his expression shuttered and instead of returning the endearment, his voice was hard and heavy when he asked, “Then why the hell did you two go off without me? Why did I have to find—that broke my heart! Looking for the two of you after practice, all fucking alone because no one else ever came, and you—finding the two of you together like that without me, what the fuck—”

“It wasn’t like that,” Isaac whispered, his voice cracking. “I swear, Jax, it wasn’t like that. I just… I needed something good.”

“Why couldn’t you have waited?” Jackson asked quietly, his voice raw with emotion.

Isaac took a deep breath that shuddered through him. Stiles reached out and pulled him close, shuffling them all together into a tight hug. He pressed a kiss to the boy’s cheek and breathed him in.

“Only tell us what you want to,” Stiles whispered against his skin. Then, because it felt so good to say, added, “I love you.”

Isaac nodded, but he didn’t say anything right away. If he felt anything like Stiles did, then remembering that day hurt like it had just happened.

But Isaac had always been the strongest of them all.

“That was the first time my dad put me in the freezer for the whole night,” Isaac told them, his voice hollow. “We had an old freezer in the basement with a padlock on the outside and that—that was the first night he locked me in there until morning.”

Jackson made a noise so heartbreaking that Stiles physically ached with it, and they both pulled Isaac closer. They each pressed into his side, but Stiles made sure that he was holding Jackson just as tight.

“I wanted to wait for you, but Jax…” Stiles didn’t know how to explain what happened without making things worse, but he held both boys firm and said, “Issy, your eyes were so empty that when you asked if I wanted to practice kissing with you… I just wanted it to go away.”

“And then I…” Jackson trailed off into nothing, and Stiles knew they were all thinking about the way he’d found them, under the bleachers, and yelled and yelled and yelled about how terrible they were.

But he wasn’t the only one at fault.

“I get why you were upset,” Stiles whispered. “I do now, but I… my mom used to tease me about you two. I know she did it to all of us, but she’d do it even when I was alone. She—she said that one day I-I might want to do more than just hold hands and hug you guys and that it would be okay. I—I didn’t know… I’d thought about it before, a little bit, but just for the future. I hadn’t thought—”

“It had only been a few months since we lost her, and it was really hard, losing another mom,” Isaac whispered, his voice breaking. “Then… then that happened, and I was so upset about your date with Lydia that I didn’t want to wait for you, but then hearing you yell like that… it brought everything back up and you—you just walked away.’

“I couldn’t handle you leaving me,” Jackson whispered. “I thought that you two were done with me, that you hated me just like my parents did.”

“I was so mean,” Stiles whispered. “I just… I was jealous too. Of you ditching me for Lydia. And I was so mad. I was mad at myself for hating my dad because he was never home, mad at myself for knowing something was happening with Isaac but not being able to help, and I just. I lashed out. By the time I realized that nothing was worth losing you two, you…”

“I’d walked away,” Jackson breathed as he brushed his forehead against Stiles' cheek.

“You both walked away from me,” Stiles whispered, knowing they would understand.

“Did you… did you blame me?” Isaac asked quietly,

“No, Issy, never,” Stiles swore, leaning in and brushing a soft kiss to his lips. “I… I’d already taken Jackson away from you. I didn’t think you’d want me back, and if you didn’t…”

“I can’t lose you,” Jackson said into the silence. “Either of you. I can’t lose either of you again. I-I fucking love you both so much.”

Stiles was definitely crying when he pressed in to kiss Jackson softly, and the other boy’s lips tasted like salt when they met. It was soft enough to barely be a kiss, but Stiles tried to pour every ounce of apology into the press of their lips. Before he could pull away Isaac was there too, his lips brushing against Stiles’ before he heard them share a kiss of his own.

Then, because his heart was aching and racing and freaking soaring all at once, he leaned back against the kitchen wall and tugged them both with him.

Cuddling standing up was awkward as hell and they had a lot more that they needed to talk about, but for now… for now, it was enough that they loved each other.

They were enough.

“You boys work yourselves out yet?” his dad asked when he got home a few hours later.

The three of them were cuddling together on the couch, Stiles making sure that he always had a hand on each of his boyfriends. They’d all agreed that the label felt a little juvenile for having spent close to a decade loving each other, but partner sounded too old and they didn’t really know anything else that fit.

So boyfriends it was, and Stiles grinned up at his dad as he nodded his head.

“I’m dating your boys, Papa S,” Jackson said with a smug twist to his lips that was ridiculous and ridiculously hot.

“Good,” Dad said, giving them a nod. “But you’re all my boys, understood, son?”

Jackson nodded before turning to bury his face in Isaac’s neck, and the other two boys laughed softly even as they closed ranks around their third.

He sent his dad another smile, and couldn't believe he’d gotten so lucky.

“Something's different,” Danny said when Jackson opened the door.

Stiles frowned at Isaac where they were cuddling on the couch. “Are we that obvious?”

“Yes,” Danny said with his dad’s voice echoing from the kitchen.

“You’re rude,” Stiles said as Danny followed Jackson into the living room. “I don’t like you.”

“Too bad,” Danny told him with a perfect smile. “Everyone else loves me.“

“Danny!” his dad said happily as he came out into the room and flopped onto the armchair. “How are you doing, kid?”

Danny sent him the smuggest smile to ever smile, and Stiles narrowed his eyes. “I’m onto you,” he hissed under his breath before Danny started telling his dad about his summer job at a tech repair place downtown.

“I don’t know what you have against him,” Isaac murmured, his lips brushing Stiles’ shoulder. “Danny’s nice.”

“Danny’s too perfect to be human,” Stiles said sagely.

Isaac blinked at him for seventeen seconds before he asked, “Holy shit, do you really think so?”

“Eh,” Stiles said, shaking his hand in a so-so gesture. “Only a little. I don’t know him well enough to say.”

Apparently being boyfriends meant that Jackson and Danny’s weekly baseball watch parties had to happen at his place. Considering the fact that Stiles was pretty sure Jackson hadn’t talked to his parents since school ended a month ago and Danny apparently had a billion siblings, he couldn’t really tell them no, but it was still weird.

For so long, it had been him, his parents, and Jackson and Isaac. Once his mom was gone and The Fight had happened, it had just been Stiles, Scott and his dad. Melissa would come over sometimes, but if they were gathering to celebrate something she usually insisted on hosting because she didn’t like their kitchen.

Danny had been over before, sure, during the whole Miguel situation, but that… he hadn’t been over to hang out. People didn’t come over to hang out, because Stiles had never been anything approaching cool.

It was just strange, sitting on the loveseat with Isaac half in his lap as he listened to his dad joked around with Danny and Jackson as the game played in the background.

It was strange, but… but it wasn’t bad.

“I have something I need to tell you that you might not like,” his dad hedged during breakfast, a week into August.

“You’re dating Melissa?” Stiles asked hesitantly, already wincing in anticipation.

Only his dad’s face coloured with shock, and he said, “What? No! Wait—why would that be a problem? Didn’t you want that to happen?”

“Er… no? Don’t get me wrong, I love Mama McCall, but… I don’t think you’d make a very good match,” Stiles explained.

“McCall is also a raging douchebag,” Jackson muttered. “He’d be a shit step-brother.”

Dad raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t say anything about it. Stiles kicked the other boy’s shin and ignored the nasty look Jackson shot at him to send Isaac a sunny smile when he sat a cup of coffee in front of him.

“Thanks, Issy,” Stiles cooed, grabbing Isaac’s hand to kiss his palm. “You’re the best.”

Isaac smiled at him like he was the sun, and Stiles totally pretended his heart didn’t do something ridiculous and definitely pretended that no one else heard it.

“No, kiddo, I’m not dating Mel,” Dad said. Then, he didn’t say anything else.

Narrowing his eyes, Stiles’ gaze immediately jumped to where his dad’s hands were tucked under the table. Gasping, he said, “But you are dating someone!”

Then, his dad’s face went red.

Oh god, his dad was blushing!

“I’m not dating anyone!” Dad protested. He met Jackson’s gaze and the other boy nodded, which meant his dad was telling the truth.

Which could only mean… “Oh my god, you have a crush!” Stiles cried, clapping his hands together gleefully. “Oh, this is the best day of my life! All these years of parental torture are about to come at ya tenfold, buddy! What’s her name? How’d you meet her?”

Before Dad could say anything, both Jackson and Isaac tensed and looked towards the front door in tandem. Apprehension grew in his belly when the door opened only a few seconds later.

Oh, this wasn’t going to be good.

And Stiles hated when he was right.

“What a lovely little pack,” Peter freaking Hale said from the entryway to his kitchen. Then, in a tone of voice that even made Stiles feel a little hot under the collar, he freaking purred, “Jonathan, you’re looking very handsome this morning.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles breathed as his brain completely shut down. “That’s why you grew a beard!”

His dad said “What the hell, kid?” at the same time Peter said, “Mhm, and what a lovely one at that,” and Stiles?

He gagged.

“Oh my god,” he said as plugged his ears. “No hitting on my dad in front of me! No blushing because Peter Hale is hitting on you! Parental PDA is not allowed!”

He kept his eyes closed even as he heard his dad bark out a laugh around his fingers. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do with the fact that his dad was not-dating Peter Hale—who was back from the dead? Did he know that Peter was back from the dead? If he was back from the dead, why the hell hadn’t anyone told him about it?—and kept his ears plugged even as he took in the light, joyful grin on his dad’s face.

Peter didn’t seem to care, because he crossed the kitchen and leaned down to give his dad a kiss.

Which would have been fine, only Peter started to tongue his dad whose brow was all furrowed and unhappy even if he wasn’t pushing Peter away, so he snapped, “Peter,” in the same commanding tone he had used to get Jackson’s attention during the last full moon.

It worked, which was all types of crazy.

“Sorry, Alpha,” Peter murmured as he straightened out. “I was merely teasing.”

“Can you tease with less tongue next time?” Stiles asked as he scrunched up his nose. “I get that my dad’s, like, a total DILF, but that was more than my sensitive child eyes were able to handle.”

His dad snorted even as he pushed his chair back and then tugged Peter into his lap.

Huh, apparently that was a thing now. Okay, well Stiles could roll with it. He cuddled his boyfriends all the time, and fair was fair, right?

Well, his boyfriends weren’t manic murderers, so…

“So, are you still evil and hellbent on murdering every single Argent despite their level of involvement in your family's death?”

His dad said his name scoldingly, but Stiles held his ground as he met Peter’s eye. If he was the Alpha, then that meant something, and Stiles was going to do whatever it took to keep his pack safe.

And his dad, unquestioningly, was always going to be his pack.

“While death didn’t suit me, it did ease some of my… radical ideas,” Peter said grandly like he wasn’t talking about murder. Stiles narrowed his eyes. “I will admit that I was a little hasty in my attempt to murder the youngest Argent.”

“What about the way you mind fucked Lydia?” Jackson growled, his eyes blazing blue from where he’d moved to stand at Stiles’ side.

God, their kitchen was so not big enough for this.

“A necessary precaution, I assure you,” Peter told them. Then, his dad pinched his side. Hard. Peter winced. “However, I’m sure the girl has questions. I’d be more than happy to provide answers in reparation for my misdeeds.”

“Peter,” his dad said softly, a note of something Stiles hadn’t heard in a long time threaded through his voice. “These are my kids. Play nice.”

Stiles’ stomach bloomed with warmth at his dad’s acceptance, and he sent the man a grin.

“Jonathan, you’re no fun anymore,” Peter said with a pout. Still, he got more comfortable astride his dad’s lap, and said, “Apologies, children. My nephew is as boring as a board and scandalizing my partner’s children has always been a dream of mine.”

“Does he still brood a lot?” Isaac asked in what was very clearly a peace offering.

Peter flopped over the arm of the kitchen chair, and Dad scrambled to steady him so he didn’t take them both down. “Oh, all the time.”

“Peter,” Dad hissed, rolling his eyes when the wolf merely grinned up at him.

It was actually kind of cute to see, but Stiles wasn’t entirely sure what he thought about his dad being cute with someone else. It wasn’t even totally the Peter Hale of it all—if someone had burned his family alive just for existing, he’d burn them right back—but it was… it wasn’t weird, it was just different from their normal.

A lot of things were different from their normal, recently, but maybe that meant they were falling into a new normal.

Stiles didn’t think that would be so bad.

Especially not when Peter made a dramatic noise before grabbing his dad’s hand to kiss his knuckles.

And the look on his dad’s face? That was just adorable.

“Right, yes, why I’m here,” Peter said. “The Alpha pack has announced their presence in Beacon Hills.”

“What the hell is an Alpha pack?” Jackson demanded as he finally sat back down beside Isaac.

“Unfortunately, it’s exactly as it sounds,” Peter said. “They are a group of Alphas that have banded together to travel North America.”

“Why?” Stiles asked quietly, already knowing he was going to hate whatever Peter said.

“Why does anyone do anything?” Peter asked. His eyes flashed blue, and he murmured, “For power.”

Well.

That sucked.

“How the hell did you find me?” Peter asked incredulously as he opened his apartment door in a pair of rumpled pyjamas.

It was four in the morning. Stiles had given up on sleep around three-twenty-seven. Then, he’d broken into the Sheriff’s station with the key he’d swiped years ago and accessed their traffic database.

Which he was absolutely not telling anyone about. Ever.

“That doesn’t matter,” Stiles said as he breezed into Peter’s apartment.

He was actually kinda surprised that the older wolf actually let him in. Just like with Chris, the older man stepped aside when Stiles walked into his apartment and didn’t say anything when he started looking around. Considering Peter was dating his dad and had spent all afternoon at their place, he figured snooping around his apartment was fair play.

His kitchen was polished and pristine and boring, which meant he probably didn’t cook much. Stiles padded into the living room and flopped onto the oversized armchair that was as comfortable as a freaking cloud.

Peter sat across from him on the couch and gave him a fond smile.

Interesting.

“So, what do you want with my dad?” Stiles asked.

It was four in the freaking morning, okay? He wasn't about to waste any time.

Peter looked at him with care, which made his respect level go up a bit. Sure, he was a teenager, but he’d been looking after his dad for years. This seemed like another extension of that, and Peter had been kinda crazy and homicidal the last time he’d been alive.

Which was when Stiles realized his dad hadn’t asked what he meant about Peter going after the rest of the Argents, which meant he must have told him what had happened at the beginning of the year.

Huh.

Interesting.

“I intend to court your father for as long as he allows,” Peter told him, a little stiffly. “I care a great deal for him, and I have for longer than you can imagine. I’d… like to be there for him, if he’ll let me.”

“You hung around for a pretty long time tonight,” Stiles pointed out calmly.

“And?” Peter asked him with a raised brow.

“And…” Stiles trailed off, leaving it open for Peter to be honest.

“My nephew is an Alpha in title, yes, but very little else,” Peter admitted, though it sounded like it pained him to do so. “You haven’t done much more, not without the knowledge of what an Alpha should be doing, but you taught my mistake of a beta how to control himself, have calmed and claimed two fresh betas, and you’ve taken steps to protect yourself and the rest of your pack.”

“Please don’t tell me you tried sneaking into my dad’s bedroom,” Stiles begged, but Peter merely smirked. “I know that a line of mountain ash might not do a lot, but it’s something. You told me there was a pack of psychotic Alpha werewolves here to challenge the pack Alpha, and like you just said, I’m acting as a pack’s Alpha.”

“It’s very unlikely that they even know you exist,” Peter told him. He held up a hand when Stiles went to speak, and allowed, “I know, I know, it’s not impossible. I appreciate the precaution all the same. And no, I did not try to sneak into your father’s bedroom because neither of us are teenagers. It merely seemed like something you would do.”

“And you know me so well?” Stiles asked sharply, but regretted his tone when Peter’s face flashed with something that looked really wistful and really, really sad. “Oh,” he breathed. “You… you were the other one?”

“Pardon me?”

“My dad… my dad used to tell me that he’d only ever been in love with two people. My mom was obviously one of them and he never really talked about you, but—I guess you two knew each other?”

“We did, yes,” Peter murmured. “Until my sister decided that courting a human was a threat to our pack and commanded me to break my own heart.”

“Oh,” he whispered, wondering what that could have been like.

If someone had commanded—and the way Peter said it had him wondering if Peter could have even refused—him to break up with Jackson and Isaac, he didn’t know what he’d do and he’d already had to live without them once. Now that they were so much more, he didn’t think he’d survive it.

Huh. Talia Hale sounded kinda awful.

“So now that your sister isn’t here to make you break up with him, you’re going to…”

“Your father is my mate,” Peter told him seriously. He must have figured that Stiles had no idea what that meant by the blank look on his face, because he explained, “Wolves tend to mate for life. If there is a partner that appeals to both the were and the man, a bond can form. It’s…”

“Forever,” Stiles breathed, thinking about the way he’d been thinking about Jackson and Isaac for weeks. Ever since they’d come back into his life, really. He didn’t know if it was the same thing, but… “Do you—do you know if bitten wolves can form the bond?”

“Yes,” Peter told him kindly. “Even without knowing, Jackson and Isaac likely began forming a bond with you and with each other the moment they were turned.”

“What does the bond mean?” Stiles asked, unsure if he wanted to know.

“I have a book if you’d like to borrow it?” Peter offered, and Stiles nodded eagerly. Then, in an offer that surprised him, asked, “If you’d like, can I tell you what I know?”

Stiles nodded again and settled in to listen.

He stayed for a long time.

“Deaton called me a spark once,” Stiles said before he had to leave. “Does that—does that make me something more?”

“Spark is a fancier term than what it really entails, I’m afraid,” Peter explained. “Often, Sparks come from a magical bloodline, but the spark is just that—the blood of Other has been so diluted that it’s basically null.”

“So it doesn’t mean anything?”

“It means some things, sure, but not as much as you might like,” Peter admitted. “It means that, regardless of my actions earlier this year, you likely would have stumbled upon our world one way or another. It means that you have… a sense, of sorts, for the things that go bump in the night.”

“A killer intuition?” he asked, curious.

“It could be, yes. It could be nothing. It could be how you managed to paint mountain ash onto your front door and make a functioning barrier.”

“That’s not normal?” Stiles’ eyebrows pulled down as he considered Peter’s words and everything that might mean for him.

He hadn’t thought he was doing anything special by painting the ash along his front door. He’d just wanted a barrier to keep his dad safe, back before he’d found out about everything. Now that Peter had told them about the Alpha pack, he’d thought adding a second coat couldn’t hurt.

And sure, maybe he’d thrown some belief into that, but he’s just painted his door.

Still, it was something to think about.

“Not at all, dear. Not at all.”

“He can’t be that bad,” Jackson told him as he grabbed his plate from the microwave.

Stiles turned his nose up at the absolutely vile concoction of microwaved nachos Jackson was about to literally wolf down, and scooped up another heaping pile of salsa on a tortilla chip. After he’d swallowed, he explained, “He’s not bad… it’s just kinda weird? I guess he dated my dad for a couple of years before his sister—who was his Alpha—like, ordered him to stop.”

“That’s shitty.” Jackson shovelled a ridiculously sized bite of steaming, cheesy chips into his mouth, and before swallowing, said, “Why’d she do that?”

“You know, you’re so prissy that sometimes I forget you’re a teenage boy,” Stiles mused. “Then, you do something so disgusting that I wonder why I think you’re so hot.”

“I’m irresistible, babe.”

Stiles snorted as he ate another chip. “I guess she didn’t think it was safe for a deputy to find out about us? I don’t know, he wasn’t super open about that.”

“But if they were mates, wouldn’t that have totally sucked?”

“Yeah, I get the idea that Talia Hale was a pretty shitty Alpha. I mean, Laura whisked Derek away to New York and left Peter here under his legal name, and I can’t imagine she got her impression of Alpha-hood from anyone else.”

“Sucks,” Jackson commented, but Stiles could tell he actually meant it. “So he thinks we all have a mate bond?”

Stiles had told his boyfriends about the conversation he’d had with Peter when he got home. Jackson had acted like unintentionally forming a mate bond was just an example of how great he was when Isaac—and himself—were all emotional about it.

Jackson’s deflections were pretty thin, but neither Isaac nor Stiles had called him out on it.

“He’s pretty sure,” Stiles answered. He’d hung out at Peter’s apartment for a few hours as he told Stiles everything he knew about mate bonds. It was all pretty interesting, even if Stiles couldn’t feel it. “I… I don’t know, it’s weird. Obviously, if he has that type of connection with my dad, I’m not going to do anything about it. And they're both adults, so it’s not like they need my permission to date or anything, it’s just…”

“Different?” Jackson offered as he started picking at Stiles’ bowl of chips.

He huffed as he pushed the bowl closer, thinking. “It’s not that I don’t want my dad to date, it’s just… it’s been the two of us for so long. After the three of us… Scott would come over a lot, sure, but it was never really the same. And with just my dad—I don’t know, holidays and stuff have been so small for so long.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Jackson said, eyes downcast. Stiles made a questioning noise, but he let Jackson have his space as they split the rest of his chips. In the month-or-so the three of them had been living together, Jackson had shown up with bags of stuff a couple of times, but he’d never talked about going home or seeing his adoptive parents. “It wasn’t as bad when I was a kid. Guess they had to pay attention to me back then, but… they haven’t even texted me.”

“Your parents?” he asked softly.

“David and Maria,” Jackson growled, his eyes flashing blue. “I’ve been gone for over a fucking month and they don’t even care enough to notice that my bedroom is practically fucking empty.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Stiles whispered. He stretched his legs forward and grabbed Jackson’s foot between his ankles, and asked, “Has it… has this happened before?”

Jackson shrugged, eyes still on his lap. “I spent a couple of weeks at Danny’s place last semester, but never this long without going back home and at least showing up for dinner.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Stiles told him seriously. He’d known that it was bad, but he hadn’t realized they hadn’t at least contacted Jackson all this time. “We could look into emancipation if you wanted? Dad mentioned something about Peter re-taking his bar—I’m sure the two of them could look into it for you?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said with a heavy breath. “Y-Yeah, I think I will.”

“I love you,” Stiles said. “I know that Dad thinks of you two as the other sons he never had. You’ll always have a place here, okay?”

The smile Jackson sent him was small, and although it wasn’t enough, didn’t replace the relationship he should have had with the people who’d taken in an innocent baby, his small, private grin reached his eyes.

It had to be good enough for now.

Stiles was sneaking glances at Isaac and his dad as he got dinner ready. They were talking in low tones in the living room, and from the way Jackson and Peter were both sitting tensely at the kitchen table, it was a serious conversation. He could pretty easily guess what they were probably talking about, and it made his heart ache.

Just as he was running through a mental inventory of his cupboards to figure out if he had enough stuff to make Isaac an apple pie, he felt the knife slip.

“Fuckity fuck,” Stiles muttered as he sucked on the tip of his thumb. Copper bloomed against his tongue, and he grimaced even as he started toward the sink.

Only, Jackson growled.

Like, really loudly.

Stopping in his tracks, Stiles shot his eyes up to find Jackson gripping the kitchen table in claw-tipped hands. His beta shift had taken over, and Stiles stared in shock as he took in Jackson’s shifted face for the first time.

“Jax?” Stiles asked softly, lowering his arm from where he’d started to reach forward when Jackson whined high in the back of his throat as he flinched back and huddled against the far wall.

Before he could say anything else, Peter was blocking his path as he crouched in front of Jackson.

“Breathe, pup,” Peter said firmly, his voice low and commanding as he took Jackson’s hands into his own. “Breathe with me.”

Jackson whined again, and Stiles heard an answering sound echo from the living room.

He watched, helplessly, as Jackson started shaking his head.

Peter growled lowly, but even Stiles could tell that the sound was meant to comfort.

“Alpha, beta, omega,” Peter said softly. “Repeat after me, pup. Alpha. Beta. Omega.”

Peter kept chanting softly, and on his third repetition, Jackson joined in weakly. At first, his words were muffled by his fangs but as they kept repeating the mantra together, Jackson seemed to calm down.

“Good, you’re doing good, pup,” Peter praised softly as Jackson’s rumbling growl began to taper out.

After a few more minutes of repeating the mantra together, Jackson’s shift receded. Peter coached him through it, and Stiles watched helplessly as something in his chest felt unbearably tight.

He was supposed to be their Alpha, but he felt so disgustingly human as he watched the boy he loved fall apart in front of him.

“Are you back with me?” Peter asked in a low, soothing tone.

“Y-Yeah,” Jackson said roughly.

Blinking quickly to keep himself from doing something like crying, Stiles said, “I’m sorry, I—” 

“You did nothing wrong, Stiles,” Peter soothed. “Jackson was merely reacting to the scent of his mate’s blood. Isn’t that right, pup?”

Jackson nodded as he stood. He stretched his neck as he took a deep inhale through his nose. His eyes flared bright blue, but they dimmed after a few seconds.

Finally, he crossed the room. “C’mere, Sti,” Jackson murmured, grabbing his wrist and tugging him forward to run his finger under the tap.

“You’re okay?” Stiles whispered, and his breath caught in his throat and the shy grin Jackson sent him.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he murmured. “Guess I’m not as in control as I thought.”

“That’s okay,” Stiles told him seriously, reaching out and cupping the back of Jackson’s neck with his clean hand. “And hey, now we have an old werewolf!”

“I am not old!” Peter screeched, and Stiles and Jackson met each other’s eyes before they burst out laughing.

“So what do you know?” Danny asked skeptically after Stiles and Peter had taken turns laying out everything they knew about the Alpha pack.

Stiles scowled.

“We know three of the Alphas and that they’re in town!”

“We also know that Chris Argent let Erica and Boyd out of his basement, they went missing, and a month later the Alpha pack announced their arrival,” Isaac added quietly.

“It’s unlikely that their announcement and the disappearance of my nephew’s wayward betas are unrelated,” Peter told them all with a pinched expression.

“Right,” Danny said, typing out something on his laptop. “Okay, that’s a start. How do you spell Deuc-whatever?”

Peter spelt out Deucalion’s name—and Ennis’ and Kali’s, the two other Alphas that Peter knew for sure made up the Alpha pack—as Stiles sat back, they were all spread out around the living room, Danny sitting on the floor with his laptop on the coffee table in front of him. Peter and his Dad were on the loveseat, Jackson was sitting on the armchair with his feet resting in Danny’s lap, and Stiles and Isaac had stolen the couch to cuddle on.

It was… Stiles didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was nice having everyone around him. He had no idea if it was because he was the “Alpha” of their band of misfits, but there was something big and warm unfurling in his chest that made him feel like they’d be okay.

And if he was the Alpha, that probably meant that he should act like it.

Taking a deep breath, Stiles refused to keep second-guessing himself and let his pack know about the plans that had been slowly building in his mind over the last week.

“Danny, can you work with my dad to get access to what you need? I want a program combing through traffic cameras for any plates you can find linked to any of the Alphas,” Stiles asked. His father sent him a look, but he didn’t say anything about it right away. Still… “If they have Erica and Boyd, we need to use whatever we have at our disposal to find them.”

“I know that, kiddo,” his dad relented. “You just know how I feel about breaking the law.”

Stiles winced, but before he could apologize Peter leaned into his dad’s space and whispered something in his ear that made Jackson look a little green and Isaac look a little horny.

Which. Stiles had no idea what to do with that so he did nothing with it and moved on.

“I want Peter, Isaac and Jackson doing patrols around the preserve’s perimeter to see if you can catch a scent. Erica, Boyd or something entirely new. But I don’t want any of you breaking the tree line, is that clear?” Stiles told them, making sure to let a little bit of authority slip into his voice.

“Yes, Alpha,” Jackson and Isaac parroted as Peter tipped his head in acceptance.

Good.

“I don’t want anyone going out anywhere alone, okay? Danny, I know you can’t just move in, so I’m going to put a line of mountain ash around your house. If the Alphas figure out you’re part of our pack—”

“Wait, what?” Danny asked with a frown.

“What what?” Stiles asked back, matching Danny’s frown as he looked down at the other boy.

“I’m part of the pack?” he asked him, which totally threw Stiles for a loop.

Hesitantly, he asked, “Are you… do you not want to be part of the pack?”

“But I'm just a human?” Danny answered which was absolutely not an answer at all.

“So am I,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but you’re the Alpha.”

“Well so is my dad!”

“He’s also the Sheriff!”

“Dude, what’s going on? If you don’t want to be part of the pack or whatever you don’t have to be,” Stiles tried to ignore the way that made his heart clench uncomfortably, “but I’m not going to leave your siblings vulnerable if the Alphas decide to go after us, okay? Either way, I’m lining your house in ash and I don’t care what you have to say about it.”

Finally, Danny cracked a grin. God, he really did smile like the sun. It was ridiculous! “Cool. Thanks, man.”

Blinking, Stiles frowned at the other boy and wondered what the hell that had been about. Jackson reached over and squeezed his hand, giving him a little nod that made him wonder if more had just happened than Stiles realized.

“Okay? Anyway, I’m gonna line Danny’s place with ash. Our place already is, and it activates once the front door is closed which is why you three can come and go. I want to do the same at the station, but I doubt I’ll be able to repaint the front doors without anyone asking questions.”

“When the hell did you repaint our front door?” Dad asked incredulously.

Stiles waved him off. “Peter… will you be staying here for the time being?” At the wide-eyed look both men shot at him, he added, “It’d be easier if we were as localized as possible.”

“Do you still snore, Jonathan?” Peter asked with a grin that was downright menacing.

“I never snored!” 

Stiles tuned out their bickering as he leaned back against Isaac’s side. The taller boy wrapped an arm around his waist and tugged him in close. Sighing happily, he rested his head on the other boy’s shoulder and let himself sink into the feeling of being surrounded by his pack.

By his family.

Stiles pulled at the buttoned collar of the brand-new dress shirt Jackson had dressed him in and tried not to feel overly self-conscious as he wiggled around in the back seat of the Porsche.

Isaac was tall enough that he literally couldn’t fit in the back seat, but that didn’t mean it was exactly roomy for Stiles. He could feel his slowly growing hair brush against the ceiling and he scowled as he tried to rearrange his legs in a way that wouldn’t make his calves cramp up.

“Jax, are you sure you don’t want to tell us where we’re going or why I couldn’t have driven us there?”

“He wants it to be a surprise, Sti,” Isaac admonished. Stiles pouted at him. “I think it’s cute!”

“You just like getting dressed up,” Stiles muttered, glaring when Isaac giggled at him because the sound was so cute it made him want to die. “Are you not uncomfortable?”

Isaac’s entire face had lit up when Jackson showed up that afternoon with two bags from a boutique Stiles knew of but literally would have never stepped into on his own. He had told them that they were long overdue for a first date and that he was taking them out that night, so they needed to get ready.

Following that announcement, they’d taken a round of showers and then Jackson had dressed them in clothing that fit incredibly well.

Isaac was wearing a soft, expensive-looking cream sweater that had strands of gold thread running through it that literally made it look like it was shimmering. Jackson had gotten him a light-wash pair of jeans that had made his legs look ridiculously long, and he looked really hot but also really comfortable.

Stiles had been forced into a deep red button-down shirt, which he absolutely hated but admittedly made his pale skin stand out. The black jeans still had the uncomfortable new-denim stiffness that Stiles hated.

Jackson was wearing a blue v-neck under a matching grey blazer and slacks and looked like he was about to sue someone and win a ridiculous sum of money that he didn’t need because he was already rich. He was already rich, but it was definitely a fancier look than his normal popped collars and lacrosse hoodies.

Then, he’d pulled them into the Porsche and refused to tell them where they were going.

Which Stiles hated.

A lot.

“I might take up veganism,” Stiles said. “Does this place have vegan options for me?”

Jackson kept ignoring him.

Which was rude.

Isaac snickered at him.

He was also rude.

Sitting back in his seat and crossing his arms, Stiles peered out the tinted back windows of Jackson’s tiny douche car and started planning out a few broad essays he could write and sell before summer was over. Roscoe had not liked being driven into a cement wall—which, really, Stiles couldn’t blame her—and while Stiles was overwhelmingly thankful that Jackson had brought her in, it felt like he owed him.

Sure, Jackson said that he didn’t mind paying for the repairs, but it left him feeling uneasy. He’d pay back as much as he could because there was no way he was gonna say no and have to commute in this godforsaken dick mobile.

Stiles’ brow pulled down when they drove into the section of town Beacon Hills considered to be their “downtown”. It was really just a collection of different shops all lined up across a few streets, but a few of their nicer restaurants could be found here. Stiles wondered if they were going to the place that did entire deep-fried onions when Jackson flipped his blinker on and pulled to the side.

Right in front of…

No, not—

High Hills was the name of a very nice and very expensive restaurant that beat out literally anything else Beacon Hills had to offer. Considering the fact that they had valet parking, Stiles had long ago resolved himself to never ever step foot in the building.

And as they rolled up to the curb, something uneasy unfurled in Stiles’ chest.

“Jackson, this is—this—” Stiles started, unsure if he’d be able to properly articulate the feeling climbing up his throat. He took a deep breath and settled on, “I can’t… it’s too much.”

“What are you talking about?” Jackson asked him, a hint of something in his voice that Stiles didn’t like and only made the tight feeling in his chest worse.

“I can’t afford a place like this,” Stiles said quietly.

He’d never had excess money growing up, but from what he could remember about his childhood, they’d always had enough. Stiles didn’t always have the latest and greatest toys, but his parents never made him feel like he was without. After his mom… there had been a few months when his dad had barely been able to function, let alone pay the bills.

And there had been so many bills. Stiles can still remember, vividly, the first time he wrote out all the numbers of the bills they had gotten in a month, added them up, and then tried to subtract his dad’s paycheque from them. It had taken him a while to understand that math wasn’t working because they just didn’t have enough money.

It had gotten better with his dad’s promotion to Sheriff, and while his dad had taken back over paying the bills, Stiles was always pretty conscious of their financial situation.

And a place like High Hills… god, that wasn’t even in their freaking tax bracket.

“Yeah, that’s why it’s my date night,” Jackson told him, in a tone that was probably supposed to be soft but still sounded a bit condescending. “I’ve never been here and I’ve been dying to try it, ergo, we’re here and trying it.”

“Right, but—”

“I’m paying for us, dumbass,” Jackson said, cutting Stiles off in a way that made him feel uneasy. But then, Jackson turned back to him, face serious. “Sti, I don’t give a shit about what you can and can’t afford. David and Maria might be neglectful pieces of shit, but they’re loaded and I’m on their credit cards. I wanna try this place, and I love you—why the hell would I want to try it with someone else just because they could pay their way?”

“But—”

“Babe, I wanna spoil my boys,” Jackson said with a note of finality in his voice. “I wanna spoil my Alpha.”

Well. Stiles hadn’t ever thought that would get him all hot and bothered, but the way Jackson shaped the honorific made his belly warm with liquid arousal.

“You like that, don’t you?” Jackson freaking growled, his eyes electric blue as he watched Stiles swallow heavily.

“You smell good, Sti,” Isaac murmured. “C’mon, if Jackson wants to burn his parents' money on us, we should let him! Besides, this isn't the only date we’re ever going to go on. When you’re a big shot detective, you can take us to fancy restaurants!”

“I love you,” Stiles breathed, hit in the chest with a sudden burst of affection so strong it made his eyes sting. “Both of you. I—I just love you.”

Both of their expressions softened. Jackson put the car in park before he leaned over into the back and snagged a kiss that Stiles couldn't help but drag out for a few long seconds. Isaac interrupted them before Stiles was done, and he laughed even as he sat back in his seat.

“Hurry up!” Isaac said, clapping his hands together. “They have a twice-baked potato that’s apparently like five pounds! I want five pounds of potatoey goodness!”

“You got it, baby,” Jackson murmured, and then pulled them up to the valet.

Stiles yawned as he snuggled deeper into Jackson’s side, listening as Isaac regaled his dad with a very detailed description of High Hills. It was sickeningly adorable to hear Isaac describe their really nice dinner date, and he grinned against the comfy sweater Jackson was wearing as his heart did something ridiculous and he fell even more in love with the other boy.

“The steak was good?” Peter asked, directing the question at Jackson since he’d been the only one willing to order a piece of meat that cost more than Stiles sometimes spent on a week of groceries.

“Incredible,” Jackson confirmed as he rubbed his chin against Stiles’ temple. “You two should check it out.”

His dad snorted loudly even as Peter got a pensive look on his face. “Our initial anniversary is coming up,” Peter mused, and Stiles laughed at the scandalized look on Dad’s face. “Oh, come on, Jonathan—we can’t let the children outshine us!”

Stiles hadn’t ever really considered having a step-parent before. Sure, Dad and Melissa had always been pretty close, but Stiles—despite sometimes teasing—hadn’t ever really seen that going anywhere. He definitely hadn’t thought that one of his dad’s past relationships would come back from the dead, seek out his dad once he realized he knew about the supernatural, and confess that they had basically imprinted on him, but Stiles figured if it had to be anyone, it wasn’t too bad that it was Peter.

Despite him initially being a total asshole, he was pretty cool. He hadn’t been upset that Stiles had shown up at his place at the asscrack of dawn, and he’d done nothing but bring Stiles in, tell him about mates, and then feed him breakfast. 

Besides, Stiles was also a total asshole and was in love with two more—he got it.

“Ugh, there’s nothing good on,” Jackson grumbled as he tossed the remote onto the coffee table.

Stiles patted his chest. He was a very good boyfriend.

“How about a little lesson on pack hierarchy?” Peter asked, which got all three teens perked up and paying attention.

As Peter launched into a very, very interesting lecture about pack hierarchy and the different roles within a pack, Stiles wondered if having a step-parent would really be so bad.

Stiles squealed as a little hand slapped his ass, and he scowled as a high voice shouted, “Tag! You’re! It!”

“Oh, it is on,” Stiles swore as he took off after Danny’s little sister.

She giggled even as she shot across the park. She was fast, but Stiles was ten years older than her, so it only took him a few seconds before he caught up to her. Leaning down, he swooped her up into his arms and swung her up over her shoulder, grinning as she shrieked and giggled so much Stiles was a little worried she was going to be sick.

She wasn’t. Thank god.

Instead, she started banging her little fists onto Stiles’ back and screaming, “Jacky! Jacky, save me!”

“I will slay the cruel dragon!” Jackson shouted in the noblest of noble voices, which was so hilarious that Stiles almost tripped over because he was laughing so hard.

“Don’t drop my sister!” Danny shouted from where he and Isaac were lying in the sun with Danny’s little brother.

Apparently, tanning was an appropriate park activity. Stiles, Jackson and Danny’s sister had all vehemently disagreed, but Danny had argued that they were outside, ergo, tanning was appropriate.

Hearing his eight-year-old brother say, “Ergo, tanning is appropriate,” was the most adorable thing Stiles had ever witnessed.

It had promptly made his ovaries explode.

And he didn’t even have ovaries!

But it was also why he was playing tag with Jackson and Danny’s sister. Danny’s dad had been called into work, which meant that Danny had been tasked with spending the afternoon with his siblings. Since Stiles’ dad had the afternoon off and Peter was over, he’d very quickly volunteered to keep them company, which Jackson and Isaac were quick to tag along to.

Now, they were all hanging out at the park. Stiles had a gun strapped to the small of his back and three vials of mountain ash on him, which meant that he was careful as he swung the little girl back onto her feet.

“You’re it,” he teased, bopping her on the nose before he started running away.

Only, she was a devious little thing, and said, “Jacky! Slay the dragon!”

Which meant that four seconds later, Jackson was tackling him to the ground.

Ouch.

“Is everything okay?” Stiles asked as he reached out and grabbed Danny’s wrist.

The other boy nodded even as he pulled Stiles into an unexpected hug.

“I found them,” he breathed against Stiles’ cheek. “I found them!”

Pulling back, Stiles gasped and asked, “Erica and Boyd? Really?”

It had only been a week since Stiles had doled out orders to the pack. He still felt a little weird about the whole Alpha thing, but they’d all listened. Peter had been staying with them, and unless Danny was at home, he’d been really good at letting the others know where he was and letting them tag along.

Which was totally fine with Stiles, because Danny’s little siblings were adorable.

Still, it had been stressful as hell, and Stiles could tell that they were all feeling it.

“The traffic cameras found a plate registered to Ennis,” Danny told him excitedly. “C’mon, are the others already here?”

Stiles nodded as he led Danny into the kitchen. Peter was cooking dinner, and the entire kitchen smelled absolutely amazing. Jackson and Isaac were both already at the kitchen table, Jackson playing a game on his phone and Isaac working through a sudoku book that he kept because apparently numbers calmed him down. Dad was standing at the counter and chopping up veggies for the salad Stiles and Peter were forcing the others to eat, but he was mostly flirting with Peter.

Which was so cute Stiles didn’t even find it off-putting anymore.

Danny rushed to the kitchen table and got out his laptop. The others had obviously heard them at the front door because they were all tracking Danny excitedly as he got himself set up. He typed in a password so long that Stiles went a little cross-eyed.

“Y-You found them?” Isaac breathed quietly, his eyes glassy.

“I did.” Danny’s smile was so infectious that Stiles let out a startled laugh as he moved to run a hand down Isaac’s head. “Daddy Stilinski got me the Alphas’ last registered plate numbers—” Danny ignored Dad’s grumbling and kept talking, “—and even though we knew that it was a long shot, I created a program that I plugged into the station’s network to track them.”

Jackson whistled appreciatively, and Stiles made his own impressed noise.

“It took a couple of days for something to ping, but once we had a spotting downtown I was able to get into the traffic system remotely and follow the car—“ “You did what!?” “—all the way to the First National Bank!”

“In the warehouse district?” Jackson asked. “It’s abandoned, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Danny confirmed with a grin.

“Ya know what, I think we have blueprints for the bank from a rezoning request a couple of years ago,” Dad muttered, but Stiles was already sitting down at the kitchen table and pulling Danny’s laptop towards himself.

“Is this what you've been using to watch the feeds?” Stiles asked as he clicked around a program Danny still had open.

It only took them a few minutes before Stiles figured out what was what and was able to get around the system Danny was using to store and watch the traffic footage, and he tuned out what was going on around him as he pulled up the feeds that he wanted.

Stiles spent the next several hours watching through security footage that showed the two entrances into the abandoned bank and tracking the one street that led to it. The others fell away as he lost himself and started to focus on all three video feeds. He kept track of arrival and departure times on a notepad someone had given him, and he distractedly ate bite-sized pieces of food when someone put a fork in his left hand.

None of the video feeds were good quality, but he was pretty certain that there were five different Alphas, which had taken three day’s worth of sped-up footage to confirm since two of them were twins. He had no idea who they were, but he murmured a license plate number for his dad to look up the first time they’d left together on matching motorcycles that had matching plates.

After watching the last week of footage and looking over his notes, he had an idea forming in the back of his mind but it felt too easy. He sipped at the water someone had given him as he poured over a set of blueprints for the bank that his dad must have secured, and wondered if, maybe just this time, it was easy.

But if it wasn’t, if he was putting his pack at risk…

“Okay,” Stiles breathed, his mind racing. “Okay, I think I have an idea.”

Stiles blinked a few times to clear his brain fog. It was dark outside, and the clock on the oven showed that it was very early the next day. There were papers strewn about the kitchen table and Danny was sitting at the island with a laptop he hadn’t had when he first arrived.

All five of them were still awake.

All five of them were still here.

Dad came over and placed a hand on his shoulder, and told him, “We trust you, kiddo,” with a gravity in his tone that Stiles didn’t know what to do with.

Peter added, “Tell us what you’re thinking, Alpha.”

Taking a deep breath that filled him with the quiet contentment of family and made him feel like he was actually worth something, Stiles started talking.

“It might just be me, but I feel like we have a good headstart on the Alphas,” Stiles said. “They’ve only announced their presence at the old Hale house, which makes me think that their message was specifically for Derek—which makes sense. If there’s an Alpha on Hale land, I’d assume it was the last legally alive Hale, too.”

He took a moment to meet Peter’s eye, but the other man merely nodded before going back to stirring his sauce. “They’ve only been here a couple of weeks, right? Well, it looks like there’re five of them; Deucalion, Ennis and Kali all match the description that Peter provided us, and there’s a set of twins. They look young, but I don’t know how old they are.”

“Aiden and Ethan Steiner,” Dad said from where he was leaning against the counter. Now that Stiles’ head was clearer, it was easy to see how tired his dad looked.

This was why he hadn’t wanted to tell him, but he tried not to focus on that now.

“Okay, cool, Aiden and Ethan Steiner. Those are the only five people who have come in or out of that bank. I watched the last week of footage—”

“You did what?” Dad asked, incredulous, but Stiles ignored him and kept going.

“—and they have a pattern. I don’t know what they know, obviously, but I doubt they know Peter is alive or that we have law enforcement on our side.”

“Why do you say that?” Peter asked him. His tone was accusatory, but it didn’t feel ill-willed. More like he was trying to follow Stiles’ thought process.

He grinned. “Last Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday all five of them left the bank entirely unattended from three to five in the afternoon. If I had to guess, I’d say that they likely have Erica and Boyd in the vault, because they wouldn’t be able to get o—”

“Moonstone,” Peter murmured, cutting Stiles off. “I remember…”

Peter trailed off as an uneasy look crossed his face. His hand grasped at nothing before his fingers curled into a fist.

Into the sudden silence, Dad gently said, “The vault was made of moonstone, or Hecatolite, because it was fancy and expensive and the mayor thought that district was going to expand a helluva lot more than it actually did when they renovated it a decade ago. That’s how they milled into the bank when it was robbed.”

“Right, yes. Moonstone isn’t the strongest material they could have used, and it also happens to have a peculiar effect on werewolves,” Peter told them. “It… absorbs the effect of the moon, for lack of a better explanation. If a wolf were to be locked up in a vault of moonstone over a long period of time, their tolerance to the full moon would greatly diminish month by month. It would be an excellent hideout for a group harbouring my nephew’s wayward betas.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Danny muttered.

“It wouldn’t be, if they’d kept them for as long as I’m sure they were planning,” Peter told them. “But they’ve missed, at most, two moon cycles. They’ll certainly be agitated, especially given the state we may find them in, but they'll still be coherent.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Stiles said, thinking. Taking a final deep breath, he squared his shoulders when he said, “It’s Saturday. If they’re following a pattern, then tomorrow at three the bank will empty. If not, then Tuesday will be the day. Like I said, I haven’t seen anyone else come in or out of the bank in the last week. We have a Sheriff, three betas, and a tech guy.”

Danny snorted a laugh at the descriptor, and it lightened the mood enough that he was able to let out a breath.

Good.

This was going good.

“Danny will be staying here. Not because he’s not capable, but because he’ll be a better asset keeping an eye on the streets leading to the bank and making sure that anything that gets called into the Sheriff’s station is ignored.” Danny nodded, a twinkle in his eye that made Stiles’ excitement start to build. “Dad and Isaac will cover the perimeter—Dad, ‘cause he’s a fairly decent shot—” another snort of laughter, and Stiles’ next breath came even easier, “—and Isaac, because I… we don’t know what state they’re going to be in.”

“Thank you,” Isaac whispered, sending him a warm look.

“That leaves me, Jackson and Peter to go inside the bank. I’ll be going in first and dealing with any mountain ash we find. Jackson, I want you right behind me with Peter watching our six, okay?”

“How long have you wanted to say something like that,” Jackson murmured softly, and for the first time since he started watching the video footage, he grinned.

“My whole fucking life,” he told him. “We are only getting Erica and Boyd out. The five of us aren’t strong enough for something more than that, and even though rescuing them is going to put a target on our back, it’s one I’m willing to paint. I know that we haven’t heard from Derek, but I don’t think he’s malicious, I think he’s just a bad Alpha.”

“So,” he said, after taking another deep breath. “What do we think?”

“It’s a good plan, kid,” Dad told him warmly. “I think it just might work.”

The others made sounds of agreement before Peter mused, “You want to return his betas to him as a peace offering.”

“Can you think of a better way to get him to work with us?” Stiles asked, grinning sharply.

Peter ducked his head in acknowledgment, and Stiles blew out a breath as he sunk back into the kitchen chair. Now that they had that settled, he was feeling every minute of the last eight hours that he’d apparently spent bent over watching security footage.

Before he could tell everyone that he was going to bed, Peter spoke up.

“I could contact Christopher,” Peter mused, his tone flippant. “I’m sure he would be willing to keep watch for the right price.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea, Peter?” Dad’s voice was dark and he looked pissed off. Stiles went to ask something, but Isaac placed a hand on his leg and he quieted.

“Whatever do you mean, Jonathan?” Peter asked, but his aura of innocence was so obviously false that Stiles snorted.

Yeah, no, he was so not getting into the middle of that.

“Well, we have a plan,” Stiles said, more than a little surprised. “And honestly, I think it might just work out for us.”

“It will,” Isaac said quietly, and his voice was so undoubtedly sure that Stiles let the heavy weight of his acceptance settle in his chest.

His pack believed him, and that was more than enough.

Together, he knew they could do anything.

“Do you really think we can do this?” Stiles asked later that night, once the initial wave of surety had worn off.

He ran a towel over his damp hair, and had a disorienting moment when he realized he was standing in his bedroom completely naked in front of his two childhood best friends turned boyfriends turned mates and he didn’t feel a little bit self-conscious.

Jackson and Isaac were already in bed, having showered when Stiles had been completely out of it going through video footage. He heard the shower turn on, which meant that his dad was probably getting ready for work.

It was Sunday, and his dad was going in early in case they needed him at three.

He’d assured him that he would be fine and wouldn't respond to any calls, and Stiles just had to hope he was being honest.

Or that Peter would keep an eye on him.

“I think it’s a good plan,” Isaac murmured. Stiles dropped his towel and crossed the room, not bothering to get dressed when he climbed in behind Jackson.

The shorter boy made a happy noise when Stiles spooned up behind him, and he kissed the back of Jackson’s throat as he cuddled close.

“Does it make sense? Like, we can’t leave them,” Stiles said quietly.

“What’s really bothering you, Sti?” Jackson asked quietly. “We all think the plan is a good one, so what is it?”

“What if something happens to one of you,” Stiles whispered, finding that the words were easy to admit here, with just the two of them. “What if I’m making a mistake? Or I’m wrong? What if—you’re all trusting me, and I can’t—”

“You’re smart, Sti,” Jackson whispered, his fingers trailing up and down Stiles’ forearm. “You’re smart and you're cautious.”

“You’re not going to do something that puts us in danger,” Isaac said, just as quietly. His hand trailed up Stiles’ thigh and settled heavy and warm on his hip. “We trust you.”

“All of us,” Jackson added, and Stiles?

Stiles cuddled closer, and let himself believe that it would be okay.

Tuesday, at five after three in the afternoon, the twins left the vault on their bikes.

Deucalion and Kali had left earlier that afternoon, and Ennis had left a mere half hour before the twins.

“They’re gone,” Stiles breathed as the security footage he was watching showed nothing but an empty street. Then, louder, he called, “Guys! They’re gone!”

Dad and Peter’s footsteps were loud as they rushed down the stairs. Jackson and Isaac came running up from the basement, and Danny closed the fridge and deposited a handful of food items onto the counter.

“The twins left two minutes ago, Ennis half an hour ago, and Deucalion and Kali went out… two hours and eleven minutes ago,” Stiles said once everyone was in the kitchen. “It’s now or never.”

“Are you ready, kiddo?” Dad asked him seriously, coming forward and placing a warm hand on his shoulder.

Looking up into his eyes, he allowed himself a single second of indecision. He didn’t know if this was the right choice. He didn’t know if it was going to work. But he did know that he trusted his pack.

And that? That meant more than anything.

“We’ve got this,” he said with certainty.

Dad merely nodded before he left the kitchen to get their guns out of the safe by the front door. When Sunday hadn’t panned out, Dad had gone to visit Chris Argent and came back with way more illegal paraphernalia than Stiles would have imagined the Sheriff would have ever been comfortable carrying around.

Isaac, who’d gone with him, had been tight-lipped but very impressed about how he’d managed to get so much.

Danny was making a sandwich as the others got into motion. Peter got Jackson and Isaac strapped into bulletproof vests—a precaution his dad insisted they all take—and then they all spent a few minutes flashing eyes and flicking claws at each other to make sure they were ready.

Dad came back with a very large duffle bag, and the two of them worked together to get ready.

Stiles had a handgun strapped to his hip and another small pistol at his ankle. The handgun was loaded with wolfsbane bullets and had a silencer already attached, and Stiles made sure his dad’s—very non-service wapons—were ready to go as he got his vest on.

By the time they were all ready, Stiles’ heart was racing in his chest but only a few minutes had passed. They still had plenty of time to get to the warehouse district, find Erica and Boyd, and get back before the Alphas were likely to return.

It didn’t slow his racing heart, but it helped him breathe through the next bout of panic.

“We can do this, kiddo,” Dad said quietly, pulling him close.

“Group hug,” Stiles announced, tucking himself against his dad’s side and reaching out for his boys.

Then, the entire pack was hugging them. He let himself soak up the warmth of his pack and drowned out his worry and doubt with the steady assurance he could feel from those around him. He counted to fifteen in his head, and then pulled back.

“Let’s do this.”

The warehouse district was almost eerily empty when they pulled up in his jeep. Apparently, Peter had taken it to an old friend of his Sunday morning, and by Sunday afternoon it was as good as new.

Well. Not new new, but it ran even better than whatever the garage Jackson had taken it to had been able to do.

Jackson pulled his Porsche up beside Stiles, and they all got out.

“There’s three heartbeats,” Peter murmured under his breath. “They’re sluggish, but not sleeping—three captives.”

“Who the hell else could they have?” Stiles asked quietly, but he shook it off. “Dad and Isaac, stay out here. Isaac, keep your eyes open.”

“I’ve got them,” Danny’s voice crackled through the Bluetooth headset he was wearing. It wasn't anything fancy, but it worked.

“Thanks, Danny-boy.”

He didn’t say anything before he clocked his head to the side and started walking towards the bank. Stiles didn’t want to leave his dad and Isaac, but they had a plan that they had to stick to and he knew that they had to be fast. A third captive wasn’t ideal, especially when they had no idea who—or how long—the Alphas had had them, but Erica and Boyd were their priority and Stiles wasn’t going to let himself get distracted.

Not when they were so close.

The front doors were already open, so Stiles slipped inside. He made sure to drag his foot against the marble step to break up any ash lines that the Alphas might have down, even if he wasn’t totally sure how they’d be able to set the lines themselves.

It never hurt to be cautious.

He made sure to keep his breathing even as he stepped into the bank. It was definitely abandoned, and there were large white tarps hanging throughout the building. Stiles had memorized the bank’s layout Sunday afternoon, and he pulled up the blueprints in his mind as he led Jackson and Peter quietly through the bank.

“Clear,” Stiles murmured as they passed through the front room.

There were footprints scattered across the floor, and Stiles could pick out at least two different shoe sizes and a set of bare feet which—ew. Who didn’t wear shoes in an abandoned building?

The vault was near the back of the back, and they had to go through two short hallways before it opened up into a larger room with the bank vault at the end of the chamber. It was eerily quiet to Stiles’ ears, but Peter murmured, “Two of the heartbeats are stronger but I can’t tell why.”

Stiles just nodded, holding up a hand to get them to stop. There was a room off to the side, and he quickly made sure it was empty before looking back at his wolves and nodding his head.

Breaking the ash line in front of the vault, Stiles was glad that Peter suggested they wear leather gloves. Jackson turned the heavy rotating lock on the bank’s door, and Stiles stood with bated breath as he slowly pushed it open.

Faint growling was the first thing he heard. He had no way of knowing if it really was Erica and Boyd, but his heartbeat stalled before it kicked up and started racing.

A stream of light illuminated the inside of the vault, and then…

It was—

It was them.

They were alive.

“You’re okay,” Stiles breathed, reaching forward as a sob tore from his throat. “Oh my god, you’re okay.”

Erica came easily, crossing the vault and falling into his arms as Stiles’ knees gave out. They hit the ground hard, but Stiles was too busy tangling his fingers into Erica’s hair to press her face into his neck to care.

Before Stiles could even take a deep breath, a big, warm body was colliding with his side and Stiles knew it was Boyd by the way the bigger boy’s arms spanned around them both and held them tight. Even with his eyes open, he couldn’t get the image of them tied up and tortured out of his head.

“You’re okay,” he said again, holding them both tight. “I didn’t think—”

“Thank you,” Boyd choked out, burying his face in the top of Stiles’ head.

Erica murmured something that got lost against his skin as they held one another tightly. He’d known, obviously, that the night in the basement had stayed with him, but it felt like a shock when his entire body went lax as he hugged them both tight.

Stiles was about to get up when someone cleared their throat.

“Pup, we need to leave,” Peter snapped, the urgency in his voice spurring him on.

“W-Wait,” Erica whispered. “There—There was som-someone else.”

Jackson was moving before she’d finished speaking. There was a second compartment to the safe, and Jackson easily lifted the weighted slab of marble that kept the door closed. A low, threatening growl shook through the room, and Stiles made sure he had a firm grip on his handgun as Jackson hesitantly stepped closer.

“She’s—she might not be—”

Before Erica was able to finish, a wolfed-out girl lunged at Jackson and hit a flashing blue barrier before she was thrown backwards. Stiles cussed under his breath as he detangled himself from Erica and Boyd, leaving them huddled together as he crossed the room.

He pulled out a bag of a mild wolfsbane strand and just hoped that Chris was an honest man.

“What is—”

“Cora?” Peter whispered in a voice that was so heartbreakingly raw that Stiles’ eyes began to burn.

Shit. Shit!

“Jackson, take them out,” he ordered, gesturing towards the two betas. “Peter—”

He didn’t know what to say. He stepped forward cautiously, keeping half an ear out and listening to Jackson usher the other two away. The other wolf was still snapping at the air, and spittle was flying from her mouth as she stared at them with glowing eyes.

He hadn’t ever seen a wolf so feral, and it made his heart race even faster.

“Peter, I’m going to knock her out and we’ll take her with us, okay?” Stiles asked, and then before Peter could answer, held the bag of wolfsbane up to his mouth and blew as hard as he could just as Cora freaking Hale made another lung for the mountain ash barrier.

Which she hit.

And then immediately passed out.

Breaking the line, he put the bag away and urged Peter forward. “Pick her up, Peter. We need to go.”

“You have seven minutes,” Danny’s voice cackled in his ear, causing Stiles’ heartbeat to spike painfully. “Fuck, hurry up guys!”

Stiles cussed under his breath, but Danny’s warning seemed to spur them all into action. Peter picked his niece up, and then the two of them sprinted out of the bank.

As soon as he stepped outside, his panic ebbed a fraction. His wonderful, wonderful pack was already ready; Jackson was behind the wheel of his Porsche while Dad stood in the open doorway, gun aimed at the access road that would take them back. Isaac was behind the Jeep’s wheel, the trunk open and waiting and Erica and Boyd were already in the passenger seat.

“Trunk,” Stiles snapped, and slammed the door shut once Peter had Cora sprawled over his lap in the open space. He rushed around to the open passenger door, and said, “Go, go go,” before he’d even closed it behind him.

Isaac peeled away, and a second later he heard Jackson speed after them.

“Take the first right,” Danny told them, and Erica squealed when the two of them were thrown against the Jeep’s door. Everyone was silent as they sped down a side road, listening as Danny directed them down a series of turns. “Now, guys!”

Opening his door even as they sped down a long street, Stiles opened a plastic bag filled with powdered mistletoe and made sure it was far enough out of the Jeep that none out floated back into the car before he pulled it open.

White dust ballooned out behind them as they drove, and Stiles knew his dad had done the same when the street whited out and he couldn’t even see down the road.

He slammed the car door when the bag was empty, listening as Danny directed them down a series of streets. Five minutes after Danny’s first warning, the boy said, “I think… I think we made it.”

None of them spoke until they were pulling into the driveway.

“It worked,” Danny said, breathless as he ran down the front steps and across the lawn. “The mistletoe—the Alphas came out and circled around, they even made it about halfway down Corset before Ennis couldn’t stop sneezing!”

Stiles let out a relieved breath as he slumped back against the passenger seat, his adrenaline rushing out of him and leaving him feeling shaky and tired.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and laughed.

His pack joined in, and it was the most amazing thing Stiles had ever heard.

Having a near-feral Cora come to in his living room was not Stiles’ idea of a good time, but taking the apparently not-dead Hale back to the train depot where Derek was still living was even lower on his totem pole of things he never wanted to do.

Still, it felt like something he had to do. If he was going to be the Alpha, he was going to be the Alpha and returning Cora to her brother felt like something important.

He wasn’t going to make Peter do it, either, not when he looked equally overwhelmed at being around Cora as he did when Cora said she wanted to go see her brother.

“What the hell is this?” Cora asked with a snarl.

She did that a lot.

Stiles stepped a little further away as he brought them down the very questionable stairway.

“This is an abandoned train station,” Stiles told her slowly. Not because she was dumb, but because he’d already told her three times. “It’s where Derek lives.”

“Why the fuck does he live here?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Stiles said, shrugging his shoulders. “He wasn’t the most communicative guy. He just growled a lot. It must run in the family.”

Even though he thought it was funny, Cora growled at the joke.

Tough crowd.

Taking that for what it was, he maneuvered through a very dimly lit and kinda scary hallway until he got to the depot.

“Derek?” he called, taking another step and then totally not letting out a manly squeak when two beads of glowing red eyes appeared in the darkness. “Dude, why are you being so creepy?”

“Stiles? What’s—” Derek stepped into the light, and Stiles could see the moment it hit him.

Derek’s entire body went tense, and a growl slipped out of his throat as he asked, “What the hell is going on?”

“We found Erica and Boyd,” he said calmly. “They’re both home with their families and getting cleaned up, but I let them know where you were staying and gave them the number Isaac had for you.”

“How did you—”

“My pack found them and rescued them from the Alpha pack,” he said firmly, forcing the same note of authority into his voice that he tried to use on the others.

“Your pack?” Derek asked with a growl as he took another menacing step forward. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“My pack rescued them from the Alphas,” Stiles repeated clearly. “And they’re bound to be pissed. Make sure you’re being careful, okay?”

“What do you mean?” Derek asked, the growl gone but frown still firmly in place as he looked at him searchingly.

“I don’t know, dude, but maybe think about moving somewhere with a front door? Ya know, one you can lock?” Stiles suggested as calmly as possible.

Derek nodded absently, but his eyes flicked over Stiles’ shoulder as he asked, “Who is…”

Stiles stepped to the side to reveal Cora, who’d apparently been hiding behind him. At first, Derek didn’t do anything, but then his eyes began to blaze red as a rumbling growl echoed through the near-empty space.

Then, Derek took a deep breath and staggered.

“Cor—” Derek cut himself off as he threw himself forward. Stiles took a few hasty steps back before the two siblings crashed into each other, and then he had to blink really fast to keep himself from bursting into tears because the reunion was really heart-wrenching.

He turned around as he attempted to give them some privacy, texting his dad to let him know what was going on. They definitely didn’t have room for two more, but he’d seen the way Dad had been eyeing Cora and he knew his father had always wanted a plethora of kids.

But he’d also seen the way Peter had eyed his niece. He was musing about what that conversation would end up being like when Derek cleared his throat, and Stiles slowly turned around.

Derek and Cora were still holding onto one another. Cora was short, and her face was pressed into Derek’s chest with his arms wrapped around her. It made him smile.

“Thank you,” Derek said, with so much emotion in his voice that Stiles had to look away.

“No biggie, man,” Stiles said. “Erica and Boyd meant a lot to Isaac. When Peter told us that the Alpha pack had shown up, we couldn’t just leave them. And, bonus, we were able to use good ol’ human measures to get them out without dealing with the Alpha pack. Which, again, probably made them really mad so, ya know, be careful and all that.”

“I-Is that where they’ve been? With you and—and your pack?” Derek made a face at the wording, but he didn’t say anything against it which eased some of the tension in Stiles’ shoulders.

“Jackson and Isaac moved in at the end of the school year,” Stiles explained. “Peter joined our pack about a month ago, but he’s been staying with us the last couple of weeks as we looked into the Alphas.”

“Is he… okay?” Derek asked before he hastily added, “A-All of them. Are they all okay?”

“Yeah, they’re all doing really well, big guy,” Stiles told him calmly.

Looking at Derek now, Stiles wondered how he’d ever been afraid of him. He looked so young, and Stiles realized with a startling amount of sadness that Derek was young. Derek hadn’t even been sixteen when nearly all of his family burned around him, and from what Stiles had been able to put together, the poor guy probably felt partly responsible.

Seeing him now, clutching his lost sister to his chest, tear tracks still wet on his cheeks, Stiles’ heart ached.

“Look, why don’t you and Cora come over in a few days? I know… Peter’s mentioned a few things, and I know you aren’t on great terms, but—I think he’d really like to see the two of you,” Stiles asked, keeping his voice low. “Like I said, Erica and Boyd are home tonight, but I know they were going to try to come around in the morning.” 

“I don’t—”

“It’s okay if that’s too soon,” Stiles said. “Just… know that you’re welcome around our pack, okay? Both of you.”

Derek nodded and his eyes flashed red in a way that Stiles thought maybe meant more than he really realized. But for now, Stiles had said his piece, so he quietly slipped away as the two siblings held each other.

“Oh my god, I love you,” Stiles moaned as he beelined to the sink to wash his hands.

“Careful, babe, you don’t want to make your boyfriends jealous,” Danny teased as he held up a drumstick for Stiles to bite into.

Stiles did, closing his eyes and groaning as delicious, greasy, crunchy chicken skin broke against his teeth and yummy, hot poultry exploded against his tongue. He finished rinsing his hands and dried them with the towel Danny passed him even as the boy doubled over with laughter, and he took the piece of fried chicken from Danny and finished it in a few more bites.

“I can’t believe I like either of you,” Jackson grumbled from the kitchen table. He had a plate piled high with delicious fast food but was using a fork and a knife to cut up his chicken tenders.

God, he was adorable.

“Sure, Jax,” Stiles said as he got himself a plate of his own and hopped up onto the counter because his dad had snagged the last seat at the kitchen table. Huh, they might need to get a bigger table. “You absolutely love us and there’s no denying it.”

Jackson rolled his eyes as he kept eating. Stiles took a page from his book and started shovelling food into his mouth, finding that he was absolutely starving now that everyone was home and safe and it was just him and his pack.

Wow, he was going to have one hell of an adrenaline crash after this, huh?

“Can you believe that school starts back up in a week?” Stiles asked the group. “I feel like the summer just disappeared.”

“Well, we did just rescue two of our classmates from a pack of murdering, psychotic werewolves, and that definitely took up a bit of our time and energy.”

“Fair point, babe,” Stiles said, winking at Isaac who rolled his eyes. “Speaking of…”

“They’re okay,” he told the group. “I got a text from Erica about an hour ago saying she was home and being smothered by her mom, and Boyd sent me a photo of him and his grandma.”

“I wanna see!” Stiles gushed as he crossed the room and slipped onto Isaac’s lap. “Aw, they’re so cute!”

“Are they—uhm, are they—”

“If they wanna be part of the pack, I don’t see why they couldn’t be,” Stiles said, looking around to see if anyone minded. “I mean, I’d appreciate it if Erica would apologize for knocking me out with my own Jeep, but there’s something about surviving a torture basement together that really lets bygones be gone and all.”

It was quiet for a beat before his dad cleared his throat.

“Danny, are you staying the night?” Dad asked kindly.

“I’d love to, Daddy Stilinski,” Danny said with a wink.

Ew.

So. Much. Ew.

“Oh, I do like this one,” Peter freaking purred, but Dad pinched his forearm. “Yes, yes, Jonathan. I remember.”

Stiles so did not want to know what that meant, so instead he said, “Jax, Issy, can you go grab mine and Dad’s mattress? I think a puppy pile is in order.”

“A what?” Isaac asked at the same time as Jackson said, “What the hell is a puppy pile?”

“Hey! Don’t question my genius,” Stiles complained. “I’m your Alpha!”

Danny snorted. “Yeah, and we wouldn’t be your pack if you expected blind obedience.”

“That’s true,” Stiles allowed. “I do like that you’re all amazingly talented and super smart and awesome at all sorts of things.”

Isaac snorted even as he kissed Stiles’ shoulder before pushing him onto his feet. “I’ll do it. Jax, get the spare sheets?”

The jock grumbled even as he stood up. He gave Stiles a quick kiss who returned it happily, before his two boyfriends shuffled out of the kitchen. He watched them go, something soft building in his chest that he couldn’t quite fight down.

He’d meant what he said to Isaac. And, even more, he wanted Erica and Boyd to join them. Because going after them, finding them, bringing them home—it was impossible not to think about being trapped in Gerard’s basement, not to remember the way that terror had knotted up his belly and made his chest burn because it was too hard to breathe.

Erica and Boyd were okay, but they all could have been lost that night.

“You okay, kiddo?” Dad asked, grabbing his shoulder as Peter and Danny left the kitchen as they muttered about pillow placement.

Stiles looked after them for a moment, wondering how it was possible that two people could fit into his family so well that it felt like they’d always been there. Jackson and Isaac—they’d grown up together and, in a way, they were always meant to come back together. Maybe it was the same for his Dad and Peter, Stiles didn’t know, but he did know that his dad was the happiest Stiles had seen him in years.

Peter was more than just his relationship with Dad, though.

Stiles thought back to the night he’d told them about pack hierarchy, as he’d explained what he had done as the Left Hand, and what he would be willing to do for his pack. He thought about the way Peter stopped cooking mushrooms because the smell bothered Jackson, or how he watched his tone because when he got enthusiastic he got loud and sometimes Isaac couldn’t handle yelling.

Peter fit with them. With all of them.

And so did Danny, who had been Jackson’s best friend for years, who had never said an ill thing towards Stiles even when Jackson was at his worst. Who sat quietly with Isaac in the mornings and played sudoku with him, whom his dad had always liked even after arresting him.

Who fit just as well.

Their pack, their family… it was growing around him, and Stiles could barely keep up.

“I think I’m really, really, good,” he whispered, his voice rough. “Is that… can I be?”

“Yeah, kid,” Dad said, just as rough. “I think you can. I think we can.”

Stiles nodded, ignoring the way his next breath shook out of his chest.

He was okay.

They were all okay.